by Max Wilde
Minty was back in the room and Skye sat forward letting her hair cover her face—hiding the tears that had welled up—pretending to sip from the coffee mug.
“Something I been meanin’ to ask you, hon,” Minty said.
“What?” Skye said, peering out through her curtain of hair.
“What was Gene doin’ with Dellbert Drum at Earl’s? Thought those two were mortal enemies?”
Skye shrugged. “Some lawman business, I guess.”
“That Drum creeps me out. Plays all down-homey, like if dumb was dirt he'd cover an acre, but there’s somethin’ else goin’ on in there. Something mean.”
Minty was interrupted by the trill of her cell phone and she dug it out from under the comforter.
“Hel—lo.”
Minty’s voice got all sugary and she winked at Skye, taking her drink and cigarette with her as she walked through to the kitchen, talking into the phone in a throaty whisper.
Skye lay back on the big bed knowing she’d sleep in it alone tonight. She closed her eyes, the day weighing heavy on her, and she almost drifted off. Not to sleep, but into the place where The Other lay coiled and restless, a prowling shadow within her.
She opened her eyes and sat up, her heart beating a panicked rhythm. She stood and walked through to the kitchen, hearing the sound of water running into the tub, Minty shouting from behind the closed bathroom door.
“Sweetie, an old beau of mine is in town for just one night, would you mind awfully if I go and see him?”
“No,” Skye said, brewing up some strong coffee. “You go. I’m terrible company, anyway.”
“Tomorrow will be girls’ night, I swear. I’ll give you some real pamperin’.”
“Okay,” Skye said. “It’s a date.”
Skye felt a moment of dislocation, a dizziness, and had to grab hold of the counter. Then a terrifying hunger welled up. The Other left aroused and unsatisfied after the incident in the RV. She could smell the meat of Minty’s naked body through the cigarette smoke and the perfumed bath soap and something that wasn’t Skye was urging her forward, the lust for flesh overpowering her.
She heard the bathroom door open and the sound of Minty’s bare feet padding toward the bedroom and Skye was halfway out the kitchen, the banshee wail of Minty’s hairdryer loud in her ears before she could gain control again and drag herself back.
She stood a moment with her forehead against the cool metal of the icebox, hearing the whirr of the motor, the faint vibration soothing her a little.
Then Minty clattered into the kitchen on vertiginous high heels, wearing a dress that barely covered her pubes. She spun and presented her back to Skye, her flesh exposed from neck to buttock by the gaping zipper.
“Zip me up, hon.”
And it was The Other that turned from the icebox and stepped toward Minty, and Skye could feel the rush of strength and swelling of her frame as it awoke and invaded her. Her hand was almost on Minty’s skin when the doorbell chimed and Minty shot off, laughing, not looking back.
“Oh, that’ll be Donny. I’ll let him do it, always good to give a boy a peek at the merchandise.”
In that moment Skye found purchase again and she fought her way upward, like she was swimming to the surface of the ocean from way down in the dark depths, her legs weak and her forehead beaded with sweat.
She heard the low rumble of a man’s voice and Minty’s giggle and then the front door slammed and she was alone. No, not quite alone. The Other was still ranging, threatening to return.
Skye turned and opened the icebox, the yellowish light washing a piece of raw steak laid out on a plate, thawed and ready for cooking.
She had grown up vegetarian, had always been unable to stomach the idea of ingesting meat and the flesh lying in a little pool of blood sickened her. But she brought it to her mouth and tore off a chunk, gagging, feeling the blood on her tongue. She tried to force it down but she couldn’t, almost as if she were rejecting it on some deep, animal level.
As if this cow’s flesh were kin.
She spat the meat into her palm and threw it in the sink, letting the garbage disposal shred it to nothing. As she ran the faucet, rinsing away the last of the blood, she knew with a sickening certainty that the only flesh that would satisfy her now was human.
19
Drum could smell cunt on the reverend. Cunt and firewater. Tincup met Drum beside the empty swimming pool, wearing his creased black suit and his dog collar, his leading man’s hairdo mussed, a lick dangling like a noose over his right eye. A shaft of yellow light fell in a rectangle from Tincup’s room, just bright enough to show the sheen of sweat on the man’s flushed face.
There had been a debauch, Drum knew. And this pleased him. He’d sensed the preacher’s frustration these last weeks. A frustration that had dulled his faculties to the point where Drum had begun to question his usefulness.
But the man was rejuvenated as he dragged a steel chair away from the broken tiles at the edge of the pool and sat down, waving Drum toward another seat. Drum shook his head, knowing the rusted wire wouldn’t hold his weight, and crouched down on one knee, the lone star on the Milky Way neon flickering fitfully above his hat.
“You saw our friend Martindale?” Tincup said.
“Yessir, I did.”
“And he’ll co-operate?”
“Yessir, he will.”
“Good. I want you to take him and go up to the city. To see the man who sent that trash down here.”
Drum was caught in the act of lighting a cheroot, the flame of his match frozen halfway to his face. He stared at Tincup, then willed his arm on and fired up the smoke and shook the match dead, giving himself time.
“Now, what man would that be, Reverend?”
“There’s always a man.”
“I grant you that, but kindly explain yourself.”
“Let me ask you a question.”
“Ask.”
“If you were that man up in the city, and you sent your emissaries down here and they ended up as hamburger, what would you do?”
Drum pondered this. “I’d send down harder men. More skilled.”
“Exactly. And you’d charge them with two tasks. One, to avenge their dead comrades. And two, to drive an even tougher bargain with us.”
“I think I’m understanding you, Reverend.”
“We can’t afford that, Drum. We need to press our advantage. Make an approach to this man, tell him we now have free passage for our product. And our product isn’t just what we cook here,” he waved a beringed hand at the ruined motor court. “We can offer a greater variety, can we not, now that we own the interstate—heroin and cocaine from across the border? You have the contacts, don’t you?”
“Yessir, I do.”
“As I thought. So, you use the telephone you took from Holly and you phone that bar. You set up a meeting with the man. You take Martindale and get him to vouch for the safe passage. You impress on this man that you now have two counties under your control, and you negotiate a deal on these terms: sixty percent for him and forty percent for us.”
Drum smoked. Exhaled. “Sounds skewed to me.”
“Don’t fret Drum. Forty percent of what we can ship up there will leave us in high cotton. Trust me. And the man in the city will understand that you are not there to insult him. That you are there to do business. He’ll accept the offer.”
“You believe this to a certainty?”
“I do.”
“Then we’ll take us a road trip.”
“Good.” Tincup stood, tugging his dog collar away from his throat. “You’re sure about Martindale?”
“I got that little doggy on a tight leash.”
“Then I wish you godspeed, Sheriff. Keep me informed.”
The preacher walked over to his room and Drum stood a while, looking out into the darkness, thinking about the dead men spread like landmine victims around the old Dodge. Thinking about luck, good and bad. He heard female laughter from inside one o
f the rooms, and the distant call of a coyote. He heard a brief snatch of a Spanish ballad, a woman sobbing words of love and loss that were silenced in mid-sentence.
Drum ground the cheroot dead and walked back to his vehicle, a falling star streaking across the sky before it burned away to nothing.
20
Gene was left holding the dead cell phone to his ear, Dellbert Drum gone now that his demands were delivered. When Gene lowered the phone its glow caught the side of his face and he saw his father reflected in the living room mirror. Then the cold light died, and as he stood in the dark listening to the hollow tick of the wall clock and the low hum of the icebox in the kitchen, Gene entertained the idea of unlocking his gun cabinet, loading the Remington pump action and driving through the empty night to Drum’s house and taking care of this business. Like his father would have done.
When he found himself with his palm pressed to the clammy glass of the cherry wood cabinet, he had to fight down the wild, murderous impulse. It was only when he thought of Timmy asleep upstairs that he regained control of himself. Drum was a threat, yes. Venal and corrupt. An abomination. But he was still a man, with a man’s vulnerabilities.
So Gene would go with him tomorrow to the city to visit this drug merchant, play his part in the charade, biding his time until he could take down Drum and Christ-sick crony. Meanwhile, he had to protect Timmy from a greater threat.
Gene, despite his almost religious dedication to all that was rational and real, couldn’t stop the coil of dread stirring a precognitive flash in the mud of his bowels. He could smell the sourness of fear rising from beneath his uniform shirt. Fear that a darkness was on the prowl and Timmy was its target.
Gene calmed himself, unlocked the cabinet door and took the Remington from where it rested beside the old Hamilton Model 27 boy’s rifle he’d once intended to restore for Timmy to hunt rabbits and birds when he was older. But he’d lost the inclination, not sure if he wanted to initiate his son into the business of bloodletting.
Gene found the red cartridges in a box in the drawer, broke the shotgun and loaded it, remembering the last time he used it: the barrel blowing the feral woman clean in half, her severed legs kicking and bucking in the red dirt, sending up a little cloud of dust until the last charge of life left her nervous system and her limbs were stilled.
Gene locked the cabinet and carried the Remington across to the front door where he threw the bolts. He walked into to the kitchen, his fingers finding the wall switch, and he blinked in the hard glare of the fluorescents as he laid the Remington on the counter beside the silent TV. There was no bolt on the door leading out to the yard, and in his haste to get Skye gone he had forgotten to demand the house keys back.
Gene unplugged the icebox, put his shoulder to the metal and moved it, cockroaches seething on the floor and the wall where the refrigerator had stood undisturbed for years. It was old and heavy and it took all his strength to shove it up against the door.
He doused the lights and went up to Timmy’s bedroom, stepping around a creaking floor board, and settled himself on a cushion by the window, listening to his son’s soft breath, the Remington leaning beside him.
Gene would not close his eyes tonight. He would sit vigil and if Skye returned he would shoot her.
21
The Other woke her from dreams of blood and flesh, the predator’s hunger driving her from the bed, Skye a passenger, an onlooker, an invaded host. Despite regular jolts of caffeine she’d fallen asleep and the dark thing had lain in wait, ambushing Skye when she was most vulnerable.
She’d taken a cold bath in an attempt to stay awake and had opened all the bedroom windows, hoping for a breeze, lying nude under the bed sheet, drinking coffee and a Red Bull filched from Minty’s icebox, the TV blaring out an endless stream of late-night action movies until the man below had hammered on his ceiling with a broom handle.
Still she’d slept.
But she was awake now and moving naked toward the open window, lifting the drapes and stepping out on the metal fire-escape, the raised lozenges on each step cool and distinct on the soles of her feet, her vision clear and sharp as she descended to the sidewalk of the empty street.
Skye, battling to find something of herself within The Other, tried to seize control, tried to tell her legs to stop, to turn back. It was no good, the barrier between herself and her invader was too porous and her fear was diluted and swept away by the hunger of The Other.
There was a surge of speed—buildings blurring past, sand and rock beneath her feet—a sensation of impossible strength, an animal panting in her ears, her lolling tongue drinking the night air: soil, dust, stale gasoline fumes and a faraway wood fire.
And flesh.
The tang of human flesh, coming warm and succulent from the dark houses as she sped past. Flesh beaded with night sweat; flesh marinated in liquor; flesh rank with the juices of sex; flesh sour and rancid with age; flesh wrapped sweet and tender on the soft bones of infants.
This carnal smorgasbord only spurred her on, out into open country, past the water tower, its looming bulk etched black against a silver gauze of night cloud.
And then she was Skye enough again to see the pale shape of the house that had once been her home, and sense the man and boy asleep upstairs.
No, she screamed silently, her voice lost in the roar of the beating heart, the rush of hungry blood, the excited panting.
Skye tried to grab hold of something, to pull The Other back, but she felt the way she had when she was nine years old, out riding with Gene and Marybeth and her horse had bolted and she’d released the reins and clung on with her arms and her legs until Gene had chased her down and grabbed the bridle and brought the horse under control.
No way to control this.
The Other flowed up the clapboard wall in seconds and paused on the roof outside Timmy’s room, the sash window open, a curtain swelling out into the night. Timmy lay in his bed, sleeping, his face innocent and unguarded. Skye registered another presence: Gene sitting with his back to the wall by the window, a shotgun beside him. Also asleep.
An arm, an impossibly strong, muscular arm, was already reaching toward Gene when the last fragment of Skye not yet lost to The Other found enough purchase to start silently gabbling a half-remembered prayer.
Our Father who art in Heaven
Hollowed be thy name.
The prayer caused the arm to pause.
Thy Kingdom come
They will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Her words were lost in a banshee wail of a legion of voices from hell and the smell of Gene and Timmy was in her nostrils—she could already taste their flesh—the wood of the window frame against her groin as she straddled it, the heat of Gene’s body visible to her.
Skye, holding on, desperate, forced out the rest of the prayer.
Deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom,
The power and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen.
The words enough to cause a tumult within, a heat, a rush of rage and fear so fierce that Skye thought she would be consumed by fire, but the prayer caused the body that was hers and not hers to retreat, to climb back down the wall and take to the desert.
And Skye, exhausted, understood that an accommodation had been made with The Other. They would feed, but not on Gene and Timmy.
Not tonight.
So Skye surrendered, allowed herself to be subsumed, let herself be carried across the expanse of dirt and scrub, down to the nearby border and beyond—the fence hurdled with ease—into the dark twin of the town she’d grown up in: a reflection in a funhouse mirror, a town of whores and cantinas, a way-station for coyotes and drug mules. And this town, unlike its slumbering sibling, was awake. Music pumping from saloons, snatches of laughter spilling into the night.
Care would have to be taken.
The Other, following some carefully calibrated instinct, found the
shadows, moving away from the busy streets to a row of shacks where a man stood by a rusted car pissing into the sand, the smell of his flesh and the chemicals in his urine sour to Skye’s nose.
As they moved in for the kill, Skye saw into the soul of the man, saw screaming women in cages, saw a girl child torn and bleeding and a fat priest defiled by his crucifix.
The Other took the man, tearing out his throat before he could yell, and dragged him past the car wrecks, away from the lights, into a ditch filled with oozing garbage bags.
Skye was a mute witness as The Other fed, tearing open the man’s chest, bending back his ribcage like it was chicken wire, removing the sticky wetness of his innards, milking his intestines for their pâté of shit and sucking it down greedily, truffling in his liver, rolling with him in the gore and the garbage, tearing ribbons of flesh from his bones and swallowing them and then holding the prize in a clawed hand—the fatty mass of his heart, a macaroni of dangling ventricles—and ingesting it whole.
22
“Daddy. Daddy!” Gene opened his eyes and looked into his son’s face, a sweet and untroubled mirror of his own. “Daddy, where’s Skye at? She’s gotta help me with the tower.”
As Gene stood—how the hell had he allowed himself to fall asleep?—the Remington slid down from behind the drapes, knocking one of Timmy’s action figures to the floor. Timmy stared at the weapon, then up at Gene, a single furrow in his brow.
“You sleep here ’cause of the monster?” Timmy asked. He was still in his pjs, barefoot. Hair tousled. Marybeth’s hair.
Gene found a smile somewhere. “There’s no monster, Timmy. Come on, get dressed. You’re going to Uncle Bobby’s place.”
The plan had come to Gene as he sat in the dark, before he’d let sleep ambush him. He’d keep Timmy out of school today while he went on the fool’s errand with Dellbert Drum. Leave him at Heck’s house, let the deputy’s wife watch over him.