Bed of Nails

by Michael Slade

  And what about Petra?

  How did she fit into Bret’s scheme?

  If the goth queen was a party to the North Van death, then she was undoubtedly also a party to the Seattle murder. Bret’s alibi, in that case, was no alibi. Instead of making the two-backed beast in bed at the hotel, they were both off committing murder and dumping the body at two sites.

  But what if Petra wasn’t involved in either murder? Then the alibi in Seattle could be true only if she had fallen asleep before Bret crept out to kill, or had been drugged so she wouldn’t wake up while he was gone.

  Once he had that alibi for whatever reason, Bret was free to strike again at the horror convention. Killing the sculptor was easy. Bret was already a customer of the artist—with Zinc himself a witness to that, owing to their previous conversation at the sculptor’s display in the Morbid Maze gallery—so not only did he have a cover story that freed him to approach the victim at the door to his room, but if forensic traces of Bret were found at the murder scene, who could say they weren’t left behind after a prior business meeting?

  But why kill the sculptor? How did that make sense? Unless the motive was only rational within the irrational fantasy of Bret’s psychotic mind. Something unhinged, like acting out “Pickman’s Model.” In that Lovecraft story, the artist finds a way to paint Cthulhu Mythos monsters from real life, and they end up taking his. If Bret thought he had opened the path to the occult realm, where he could commune with the Mythos at will, then, when his psychosis was in a florid state, he may have killed the artist for any number of delusional motives, such as to get even with him for the blasphemy of depicting his occult subjects wrong.

  Blur the line between fantasy and reality, and anything goes.

  The outer limits are limitless to psychotic minds.

  And what could be safer than escaping from the murder room? As blood-spattered masqueraders milled through the hotel, a blood-spattered killer was just part of the scene. So off Bret went for a simmer in the hot tub and a cleansing dip in the pool while Zinc was playing peeping Tom outside Petra’s bedroom.

  All the pieces fit.

  Except for Petra’s role.

  Crack that, the Mountie thought, and I’ll crack the case.

  Twenty feet or so behind Zinc and Bret, the Goth was in the group that trailed the cop and his prime suspect. Close by was the carryall in which the pair of spearguns were being lugged across the dead coral. The Goth used the trek to examine the Mountie with a butcher’s eye, trying to determine the order of cuts that would keep Zinc alive and screaming for mercy the longest.

  MARAE O RONGO

  Crossing the makatea was like walking through a lush jungle. Pockets of volcanic soil had clogged some of the holes left by decomposition of the polyps eons ago, so now the alien landscape of the fossilized coral was a dense tangle of tropical greenery. This wild vegetation included the ever-present coconut palms, for all it takes to grow one of those hardy trees is a dropped coconut shell rooting in some sand. Pandanus leaves, used for weaving thatch and mats throughout the South Pacific, interwove with vines, ferns, mosses, and other scrub plants to shield the Odyssey team from the hammer of the pounding sun. The shade over the quarter-mile trek was a welcome relief.

  Eventually, the seven seaward hikers zigzagged single file down a foothold path cut into a crevasse that cleaved the fifty-foot-high face of the gray makatea cliff. As Zinc set foot onto the dazzling beach at the bottom, a wicked-looking red-and-yellow wasp alighted on the bare skin of his arm. Dropping the carryall in his other hand, he brushed the insect away before it stung.

  “Whew!” exclaimed Yeager. “Is this place for real, or am I dreaming?”

  “It’s the dead of winter back home,” Pigeon said, “and you’re about to wake up to another day of Vancouver rain, before going to work for another boring day of corporate finance.”

  “Don’t wake me!”

  The vista that enveloped them had to be seen to be believed. There are panoramas in travel brochures that lure sun-seekers away from home in the blahs of winter, but this lagoon was so heart-stopping in its surreal splendor that it would be a siren call away from a perfect summer. What Muri Beach had in sun, sand, water, reef, and fish, this ultimate Eden had a hundredfold. The shore that stretched from the towering makatea to the achingly azure lagoon was bleached whiter than white. So clear was the water where the sand slipped into the sea that even from here they could see the coral garden wonders that awaited them on the gleaming floor of Tangaroa’s swimming pool. Out beyond the surf-topped reef with its sprinkling of languid motus, the visibility would be hundreds of feet into the depths of the sea.

  “Is that the Hilton?” Yeager asked, pointing left.

  Halfway along the shore to where the lasso of the coral reef joined that edge of the deserted island, a shelf stuck out from the makatea like a disrespectful tongue. The outcrop was surmounted by the ruins of the old True Gospel Mission, basically four limestone walls with a caved-in roof of rotting thatch. Faded from the erasing glare of the blistering sun, faint words and a colorful wall painting could still be made out over the door. “Tapu! Tapu! Tapu!”—“Holy! Holy! Holy!”—harked several heralding angels in the mural.

  Stuck on wooden stilts above the lagoon in front were three over-water kikau huts. The classic Polynesian dwellings of getaway fantasies, their frameworks were lashed together with coconut hemp sennit ropes, their peaked roofs thatched with platted pandanus leaves. Each hut had a deck with stairs descending to the water, so all that was missing was a fleet of three outrigger canoes for the Odyssey members to paddle.

  “Let’s check in,” Wes said, “then gather at the marae.”

  As the group swiveled to follow his pointing finger in the opposite direction, a chattering kingfisher dive-bombed the lagoon and speared a fish with its bill. Flipping the catch in the air, the bird opened wide to let the fish slide down its gullet.

  The expanse of shore to the right was longer and blindingly bright. It also ended where the loop of reef joined the island. Burrowed into the gray makatea cliff about a third of the way along were two round black caves that yawned like hungry mouths. Equidistant between them was a huge flat rock, and laid out on its rectangular surface and flanked by gallows palms were the remains of an ancient idol marae dating back to cannibal times.

  “Kopupooki,” Grimmer announced.

  “Translation?” Zinc asked.

  “Stomach Rock.”

  Wes spread his arms to take in the marae.

  “Marae O Rongo,” he announced.

  “Here is where the Atiuans performed blood sacrifices. Back then, this marae was a rectangular meeting place where the Atiuans erected fifteen-foot-high phallic idols carved from ironwood trunks to honor their elder gods. The four sides were delineated with triangular stones that jutted up like sharks’ teeth and had been harvested from stalagmites within the flanking Eyes of Tangaroa caves. The inland boundary of the marae still has the ariki throne on which Rongomatane once sat, but the passing of time—or the weight of the man himself—has cracked the seat in half. As you can see, the pieces don’t match. The half we found on the marae is ghost white, and the half we retrieved from the shade behind has gone brown.”

  Having stored their gear in a nearby shaded thicket, the Odyssey members had stepped up onto Stomach Rock, where they now sat among the remains of the cannibals’ ritual grove. Two rows of lesser stones ran along each side, from the ariki’s throne at the head to the tail end by the sea. On them, the leaders of lower rank than the king—the mataiapo and rangatira of the royal gentry—had sat face to face, while commoners watched what went on from the beach. Today, in the heat of the afternoon sun, those who sat sweating on the ancient stones were the six listeners.

  Wes, playing the role of taunga, stood in the center.

  “This marae was dedicated to Rongo and Tangaroa. Huge idols of both cannibal gods stood where I’m standing when the first missionaries landed. They were toppled and burned during
the Christian conversion that led to that”—Wes swung his arm around dramatically to point along the beach at the ruins of True Gospel Mission—“but I have a replacement.”

  Stepping out of the marae, Wes jumped the few feet from the rock down to the beach and fetched a Nike carryall that had been stored with the rest of the gear the group had carried across the makatea from the plane. Returning to the ritual ground, he unzipped the long sausage-like bag and pulled out a three-foot-high wooden idol of a Polynesian god.

  “Tangaroa,” Wes announced, erecting the carved image in the center of the marae so it faced the reef.

  The big-browed head resembled that of an Easter Island monolith. With squinty eyes, a flat nose, and a monstrous mouth, the idol also had a potbelly whose prominent navel seemed about to burst open from having gorged on human flesh. The tiny arms and powerful legs were as out of proportion as the limbs of Tyrannosaurus rex. And dangling proudly between its legs so the massive circumcised head reached its ankles was a truly humongous cock.

  “Ooh-wee,” Petra said. “Is he well hung.”

  “I posed for it,” Wes said, winking at the goth queen.

  “In your dreams,” scoffed Bret.

  “No, Bret. He’s in my dreams,” Petra teased.

  Lister sat across the marae from Zinc. The sexual innuendo turned his face a deeper red. It was already flushed from a volatile mix of anger at Wes, insomnia, sunburn, and the arduous effort he’d expended to schlep his luggage across the makatea. Instead of countering Petra’s comment, the fried man turned in on himself like an ingrown toenail. With his ballpoint pen, Bret added not one but two ink tattoos to the revenge mark that already marred his throat.

  “In their zeal to erase all vestiges of pagan idolatry, the Christians outlawed carving of the elder gods,” said Wes. “When the islanders began to carve again, the idols were as sexless as Ken and Barbie dolls. But as you can see, they now have their mana back.”

  “I’m getting hungry,” Yeager said.

  “For food, let’s go to war,” responded Wes. “The first thing we must do is consult the appropriate gods. Rongo is the god of war, so he demands blood. For that, the Atiuans kept slaves on hand. A sacrifice was hauled to the center of the marae, where the taunga gouged both eyes out of the screaming man. The priest handed Rongomatane the eyeballs to swallow raw, to feed the cannibal god who lived inside his namesake. The eyeless sacrifice was then offered to the Rongo idol on the marae, now that his eyes were ‘open’ to the ruler of the invisible realm. A needle of human shinbone was rammed through both ears to thread a rope that was then used to hoist him up, like a man hanged from the gallows, into one of these coconut palms. Finally, the sacrifice’s entrails were pulled out to divine the appetite of the god of war. This was followed by a chant to Tangaroa, god of the sea.”

  Wes cupped both hands around his mouth and called out to the reef.

  “Tangaroa e … me oro koe ki te moana nui … numinumia.”

  He’s really into this, thought Zinc.

  “Translation?” the Mountie asked.

  “Tangaroa ho ... When you go to the big ocean, keep it calm.”

  Petra clapped.

  “Well done, Wes,” said Yvette.

  “Now what?” Pigeon asked.

  “We launch our war canoes and row across the Moana Nui o Kiva—the Big Blue Ocean—to storm the shores of Mauke, Mitiaro, or Rarotonga to get us some man meat.”

  “We need a sacrifice,” Yeager said.

  Without a word, Bret stood up and jumped down from the marae. The others watched him rummage in debris scattered around the trunk of a coconut palm. When he found what he was looking for, he returned to Stomach Rock.

  At four and a half pounds, the blue-gray coconut crab is a monster of a crustacean. Each takes twenty years to mature. A nocturnal attacker, it eats at night, scaling palms to snip off their nuts with enormous pincers that can easily crack open shells that don’t split from the fall.

  Without stooping to place the crab on the marae, Bret dropped it in front of Wes’s idol and crushed the crustacean with such a pulverizing stomp of his hiking boot that the guts of the creature splattered the Odyssey members.

  “Jesus Christ, man!” Yeager swore as he was sprayed with shards of shell and strings of meat.

  “There’s your sacrifice.”

  “Sushi, anyone?” Petra asked.

  If it was hot before, it was blisteringly hot now. As midday wore on, the sun baked down on the marae with growing ferocity. Zinc began to feel lightheaded from the relentless heat, while the buzzing of nearby insects took on a metallic drone. As the Mountie listened to Wes recount the Atiuans’ cannibal raid on a neighboring island to hunt for man meat, his overheated imagination visualized the horrific attack that Wes captured in words.

  “Imagine you’re on Mauke when a watchman looking out to sea cries down a warning from the top of an ironwood tree. Rowing through the reef you see Rongomatane at the head of an armada of eighty outrigger canoes. The man-eaters wading ashore are a fearsome sight to behold. Their bodies are blubbery with human fat that is both their own and that of your ancestors. The invaders fight naked except for loincloths at their waists and helmets of hardened sennit protecting their heads. Around you, family and friends are being skewered on spears or clubbed to death. Those seeking refuge in the caves are being hauled out kicking, screaming, and begging for mercy. Females are killed or spared according to their looks. Plain women suffer the same bloody fate as the men. Pretty women are hog-tied and carried off to the boats. Imagine you are one of them after that slaughter. There you sit among the corpses of your father, mother, husband, children, relatives, and friends as the cannibals row you here.”

  Wes fell silent while staring up at one of the Stomach Rock palms from which the Atiuans would have hoisted their eyeless sacrifice to Rongo if these were cannibal times. The self-appointed taunga of the Odyssey was off in a trance like those that take a snap of the fingers to break. At first, Zinc was unable to fathom what held his attention. But then he recalled the childhood trauma that Wes had related to his audience at the World Horror Convention, and the pieces of the psychological puzzle fell into place.

  A hanging tree.

  The buzzing of flies.

  A memory from the past.

  Flies like those that buzzed around the head of his dad on the day Wes Grimmer had found him hanging from a gallows tree.

  Is the heat getting to him? wondered Zinc.

  “Rongomatane’s cannibals had their victory feast here,” Grimmer said, snapping out of it. “The bodies that came back whole were hung by the heels from all these trees until the sand around turned red from the blood that rained from their cut throats. The idols taken from the maraes of the vanquished Maukeans were offered to the gods of Marae O Rongo as thanks for the victory, along with trophies seized during the raid. The severed heads of important warriors and the bones gnawed clean during the cannibal feast littered this marae for months after the celebration. How many humans were butchered and eaten on Stomach Rock? Thousands, I would guess. Their idols may be gone, but what about the elder gods and the ghosts of those consumed? Is this marae haunted? Are you defiling a sacred place? It was tapu to tread on a marae without permission of the gods. The penalty was death. So there’s another plot for you to consider. Which of you will craft the tale that crowns you as our new ariki? Who will sport this headdress of bloodred feathers that signify both cannibal gods?”

  Wes pulled a plumed helmet out of his Nike bag.

  “And who will wear the maro kura, the sacred red loincloth of the mana ariki?”

  Wes held up a red diaper.

  “This sounds like ‘Survivor,’” Yeager said.

  “Red’s my color,” commented Yvette.

  “Phew, it’s hot!” Pigeon said, dripping sweat.

  Zinc gazed up at the blazing sun. This heat could indeed drive you crazy. Usually, the Cooks were cooled by tropical breezes, but today that ocean fan was on the fritz.
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  “Who’s for a swim?” Petra asked.

  “Good idea,” said Wes. “Let’s get our snorkel equipment and go raid the reef.”

  When the Odyssey regrouped at the lagoon a few minutes later, Wes was armed with a compressed-air speargun.

  “I’ll spear dinner,” he said, “while you guys float around.”

  Uh-oh, Zinc thought. I don’t like the sound of that.

  The Mountie knew enough about spearfishing to grasp the potential danger. A speargun is like a crossbow that hurls a barbed shaft. The power source can be a steel spring, rubber bands, a gas cartridge, or—as was the case here—pneumatic power. The speargun in Grimmer’s hands had what appeared to be a pistol grip at its back end. Extending forward from the grip was a long metal tube with a piston barrel inside. The insertion of a spear shaft into the muzzle rammed the piston back until it was caught by the trigger hook and held in place. The portion of the tube behind the cocked piston in the upper part of the hand grip was an air chamber. A valve at the rear of the hand grip was used to pump compressed air into the gun. Pull the trigger and the piston was released to shoot down the barrel until it hit a shock absorber inside the muzzle, hurling the barbed spear forward through the water. Or through the air, if the gun was fired on land.

  “That looks deadly,” Zinc said.

  “You can never be too safe. See that reef?” Wes said, pointing the barrel across the lagoon. “There’s nothing between it and Tahiti but the deep blue sea. Past that protective barrier, the drop-off is twelve thousand feet. Anything can happen out there. Some very scary monsters lurk beyond the reef.”