Scraps & Chum

by Ryan C. Thomas

  “Look at that. No one will believe us,” Paul said.

  “But we know. And we must be alert for more. The Regulars have something evil in their possession. And it knows who we are.”

  Paul nodded. “Time to go.”

  “We can get another horse in Lexington. I’ll follow you back.”

  Together, the two men, both cut and bruised, rode back to Boston, keeping a lookout for strange shapes, listening to make sure the forest creatures were still stirring. From somewhere far away, the cries of battle filled the air. It was the cry of freedom.

  ***

  “I can summon more,” the old man said as he coughed and rubbed his head. “But I am old and the possession is harder to control. It wants to eat whatever it sees.”

  The Sommerset was crammed with British troops awaiting orders and crates full of weapons and food. It was hot and smelled of stale skin despite the cool breezes blowing across the water outside. The elderly man lay in a small bed, a candle beside him, sweat glistening on his face.

  At the bedside, William Hearthmill, General of the king’s second infantry regiment, turned away in disgust, looked at his aide. “Reports?”

  “We were turned back at Lexington. This Revere awakened the countryside and they amassed before we could surprise them. Hancock and Adams slipped away.”

  The general drew his sword. “Pity you are the last of your kind, old man, we might have still used your services were you younger. But your monster failed. And you failed. And now we have a war to deal with. Pity. It would have been a formidable ally for us.”

  The old man wheezed. “You should have let me do it earlier.”

  “And alert the town? You old fool.”

  “We had him in New Hampshire.”

  “You swiped at him when he was surrounded by twenty men. You were a fool to even try it then. You told me your conjured beast could follow him to the leaders. And then kill them in secret. It did neither.”

  “I can try again. I can summon another.”

  “I think not. This time we will fight man to man. It is a small collection of provinces, the people are inept and have no proper military of their own. We will crush them. When you see your monster in hell, say hello to it for me.”

  “But…” the old man raised his hand.

  “Goodbye.” The general thrust his sword through the man’s throat, killing him instantly. Then, to his aide, “Gather the troops, and get me some ink. I will inform His Majesty we need more troops. And then we will crush this ridiculous collection of infidels. No more magic, no more old wizards. The old ways are dead. Victory will be ours by our hands alone.”

  MARTIN’S JOB

  There was a low rumble, somewhere distant, followed by firecracker gunshots and faint screams. As if in response, the police precinct trembled, dust snowing from the ceiling. Martin held his head in his hands, stared down at the nicked interrogation table in front of him. Someone had etched smells like bacon in here into the surface. Elsewhere on the table, dark brown stains suggested something beyond verbal coercion, something Martin thought was only a cheap device used in television dramas.

  Across the table from him, fists balled so tightly the white bone underneath looked like it was going to rip through, officer Burke loomed like a golem frozen in time. His wide jaw moved ever so slightly, chewing over possible ways to get Martin to tell the truth. It seemed he had aged ten years since the interrogation began some thirty-five minutes ago. Twice he had stepped out of the room into the bullpen, the maze of desks visible to Martin through a thick pane of Plexiglas, and asked, “Has anyone gotten hold of my wife yet!” Each time the reply was no.

  Martin didn’t know the joys of marriage, but still, he felt bad for the man.

  Burke’s eyes flicked to the solitary window in the corner of the room that looked out over the city street, stayed there for a minute, and then returned to Martin. The Herculean cop was silent, furious, scared. His attempt to hide his vulnerability wasn’t fooling Martin. And that scared Martin even more. After all, Burke was authority, he was the law, he had no reason to be scared; people didn’t mess with big cops.

  But then, people weren’t the important part of the situation unfolding around them.

  Burke stopped leaning on the table and rolled his sleeves up. Faded military tattoos hid beneath wiry, dark hair. One of them was a Marine Corp logo.

  “I don’t know,” Martin stammered. It was more an effort to fill the silence than anything else.

  Out in the precinct’s offices, cops ran around like excited ants. Nobody seemed to know what to do or who to call. It was chaos.

  The building lurched again, the grout in the green tile walls cracking like varicose veins.

  “Tell me once again about the door,” Burke said.

  Martin met the man’s eyes. “What’s to tell. It was just a door. Typical, red, with a gold knob.”

  “And the man who went into it?”

  “Please can I go home? I don’t know anything. My dog is still outside and I…I just want to go home.”

  Burke came around the table and leaned in close to Martin’s face, his large head eclipsing the room’s overhead light. His bloodshot eyes hovered in the shadow between them. Martin had to look away again.

  “I’m trying to understand. You said there was a man, so describe him. Again.”

  Martin swallowed, tasted adrenaline and fear. Just thinking of the man made him afraid, as if mentioning him would bring swift retribution of some sort. “Long neck, blond hair, glasses,” Martin replied. “I’ve already given a description. Can I have a cigarette?”

  “No. This blond guy was the guy who hired you?”

  Martin felt the building rumble once more, saw the overhead light swaying, heard the now familiar sound of gunshots a few streets away. He wished Burke would back off; it wasn’t really his fault after all. He couldn’t be held accountable. Could he?

  “Yes,” Martin said. “The name of the firm is—”

  “We checked. Right before the Web went down. We checked. There’s no such firm as Plato Processing. It doesn’t exist.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Well he said that’s who he worked for and that’s the name that was in the listing.” Martin remembered the ad in the paper: Data processor needed, part time, good pay, first come first serve. Plato Processing.

  He remembered it, but he wished he could forget.

  ***

  The ad contained an address to an old warehouse near the shipyard. Martin rushed out there in his baby blue Taurus, the fan belt squeaking the whole way, praying he’d be the first to arrive because he was so mired down in late fees on his credit cards his only other option for getting ahead at this point would be filing bankruptcy. He smoked a Camel as he drove but it did little to relieve his stress. The nearly empty cigarette pack in his shirt pocket, purchased after scrounging change from under couch cushions, was just another reminder of his destitution.

  He rehearsed answers to possible interview questions on the way, many of them lies; the resume on the seat beside him was already full of them. He needed to do whatever he could to get the job.

  It was nine o’clock when he pulled into the parking lot of the warehouse. The building’s façade was covered in rust and illegible graffiti. The lot was empty.

  A note hung on a large metal door at the front of the building: Applicants Please Knock. He pulled his old college blazer across his neck to fight off the wind blowing off the water. Near the dock, a blackened barge rolled in the tide, a slick, dark liquid running out of a bilge hole into the water.

  The door opened a crack and stopped, the occupant inside studying Martin. Then it swiftly opened wide to reveal a skinny blond man in a red knit sweater and tortoise-shell glasses. Martin immediately noticed the length of the man’s neck but composed himself not to stare. He himself had grown up with a large gap in his front teeth and knew well the discomfort that came from being scrutinize
d over physical abnormalities.

  “I’m here about the job.”

  “Yes. Right this way.” The man motioned Martin inside and led him through the dark warehouse, past broken-down forklifts, oil drums devoured by rust, through looming shelves stacked with dusty boxes long forgotten, down a set of stairs to the basement where cobwebs were thick and unsettling. A dim bulb threw coffee-stained light onto rundown machinery.

  “Just a little further,” the man said. He did not smile nor seem to be embarrassed by the poor condition of the place.

  They entered a long hallway littered with scraps of yellowed paper and torn cardboard boxes. Someone had smashed the glass to the fire extinguisher box on the wall and taken the extinguisher. Overhead florescent lights flickered continuously as they made their way to an office with wood paneling and an orange shag rug. A Budweiser calendar a decade old still hung on the wall. The lighting in the office was also dim, but at least it didn’t flicker.

  “Here’s the computer you’ll be working on.” The man tapped the keyboard to bring the old computer out of sleep mode.

  “Please.” The man pulled out the desk chair.

  Martin eased in behind the industrial gunmetal desk, just like the one his father used to keep in the garage growing up, and looked at the computer screen. There was a database on it filled with various names. No addresses, or telephone numbers, or additional information of any kind, just names.

  “I trust you’ve used this program before,” the man asked. His long neck was bent at a very unatural angle. Martin looked away quickly, reminding himself that dirty environments and strange staff made no difference as long as he got a paycheck. His bills were too many to be choosy.

  “Yes, I’ve used it a bunch. Not too great with formulas but I—”

  “No need for formulas. Just enter the names into the database as you get them. Last names first. Full middle names if there are any. Understand?”

  Martin nodded, risked a look at the man’s neck, saw that it was it bending in a new direction. It seemed to undulate ever so slightly, like a snake slithering.

  His palms began to sweat, something that always happened when he felt confused and uneasy. He wiped them on his pants, realizing there were no other workers in the building. Why such a large building for such a small job? Why no interview questions? Why just names? He hadn’t even told anyone where he was going. Maybe it would be best to say he forgot something in the car and leave.

  “Did you have a big turnout? For the job?”

  “You are first. So it’s yours if you want it. It pays thirteen dollars an hour. I can pay you in full at the end of each day with cash. That way you won’t have to worry about taxes.”

  Martin considered this. Coming home every day with pay would certainly help with the bills, especially not having to give any of it to Uncle Sam.

  “That sounds great,” he replied. “Will I be the only one here?”

  “Yes. For now. The…company…I represent has experienced a buildup, a spike if you will, of data, and can no longer keep track of it on their own. I realize it’s not the most pleasant environment, but it was the best I could do on such short notice.”

  “How big a buildup?”

  “We are unsure. The job might last several weeks, perhaps even slide into something more permanent…providing my employer sees your benefit.”

  “Permanent?”

  “Yes, times are…changing. The names accumulate more rapidly than ever before. People are desperate.”

  Martin was lost. “And the names are—”

  “Prospects. People we are keeping an eye on, though many of them we won’t see for some time. Nothing illegal, I assure you.”

  “Oh.” Martin looked at the screen, studied the names. They meant nothing to him, just random names that may as well have been numbers. Simple names like Thomas Jennifer above and below elaborate ones like Farazella Alejandro Miguel Guillermo.

  “Here.” The blond man tapped a stack of papers next to the computer. It was a list of names written out in long hand, though written was an understatement. They were scribed in some type of calligraphy. Though calligraphy wasn’t right either. More like the fonts he’d seen on horror movie posters and heavy metal album covers: artistic and sharp, dark and ominous. It seemed a waste of time for them to be written in such a manner if all he was doing was typing them into a database. They made his palms sweat again.

  “Just go down the list and enter the names,” the blond man said. “I will bring more as they come. Is everything clear?”

  Martin said yes, swallowed his anxiety and thought of a daily income, how good it would feel to be back on his feet once again. With the under-the-table scale, he may as well be making almost twenty dollars an hour, not bad at all.

  “Good.” The long-necked man smiled and moved to a door in the back of the office. It was dark red with a gold doorknob. A small black symbol resembling a ram was painted in the center of it. Martin hadn’t noticed the door before; in fact, he was pretty sure it hadn’t been there when he’d entered. But then, the lights were pretty dim so he assumed he’d just missed it. The blond man stuck his finger in his sweater’s collar and scratched at his neck, which continued to ripple grotesquely.

  “Feel free to use the bathroom down the hall, and to take a lunch break around noon. If you need anything, just call me at extension zero. My name is Horris.”

  “Sure,” Martin replied.

  “But please, do not open this door. No matter what you hear, it is against company policy for unauthorized personnel to open it.”

  And with that, the man opened the door and stepped inside. It shut behind him with a click. Martin was alone. With the door.

  No matter what you hear…

  What the hell did that mean?

  ***

  The police station bucked violently. Tiles shook loose from the walls. Paperweights and phones danced off of desks. Burke moved his hand to his gun, an instinctual gesture for a career cop. Sweat dripped from his forehead and plopped on the table, mixing with the dark brown stains.

  “And you opened the door,” he said. “Why?”

  Martin rubbed his hands together, his slick palms sliding back and forth. “I told you this too. I don’t see how—”

  “I know what you told me. I’ve been a cop for twenty years, Martin, and one thing I know sure as flies like shit is that what someone tells me happened and what actually did are never the same. So you opened the door, despite warnings not to. Why?”

  Martin turned and looked out the window. Screams rose from the streets, curdled, angry, pleading with God. Car horns bleat like sheep in a slaughter house. Gunshots had gone from random pops to a constant tattoo.

  “I heard something, or someone, I think.”

  “Heard what? Hurry up and get to it, Martin.”

  “A voice. Pleading. ‘Let me out. Help me.’ Like that.”

  “Man? Woman?” The cop’s eyes kept flicking to the window. Seismic activity continued to shake the interrogation table.

  “Man, I think. Just kept begging me to let him out, that he was being held prisoner. How could I know?”

  ***

  Martin decided he would take a break in fifteen minutes, use the bathroom and maybe go out and have a smoke. With money guaranteed at the day’s end, he could finally stop rationing his Camels. The past two hours had been dull, alone in the office entering names into the database with no one to talk to but Miss Budweiser. His wrists were starting to cramp up.

  He looked at the list and found the next name. Carlos—

  Boom boom! The red door erupted in a fit of banging. Someone pounded on it from the other side, someone desperate to get through. Martin jumped up and knocked the stack of papers onto the floor. His heart went from 0 to 100, slamming against his ribs. His testicles drove up into his stomach.

  “Horris?” His body shook from the scare. There was no answer.

  Boom boom!

  The pounding was so violent Martin thoug
ht the door would explode in a hail of splinters. Frozen as he was in shock, he knew it was in his best interest to find Horris.

  He picked up the phone and stabbed a finger at the zero. That’s when the door stopped banging. A voice from the other side whispered, “Help me. Please don’t call Horris. Help me. I’m in pain.” The voice was masculine. Yet is somehow sounded wet.

  Martin stood with the phone receiver against his ear, the stack of papers littered on the floor. What should he do? “Are you okay?” Stupid, Martin, he chided himself, does he sound okay? “Um…I’m just going to call Horris and tell him you need some help, okay?”

  “NO! NO! Please don’t call Horris. I need to get out, before he discovers I’ve left. Please help me. I’m in so much pain.”

  “What kind of pain?” Martin’s hand hovered over the phone buttons.

  The door banged again, shaking the walls. “Don’t you get it! He’s trapped me here. He hurts me when no one is around. I need to get out and get away or he’ll keep hurting me.”

  “Who? Who is hurting you?”

  The voice grew raspy and labored, as if running on dying batteries. “Horris. Horris is not what you think. Did you see his neck? He’s not what you think. Please let me out or he will kill me.”

  Could this be some kind of test, Martin wondered. It seemed too surreal not to be. What purpose would such a macabre test prove?

  “You saw his neck,” the voice rasped, “saw it moving. You must believe me or he will get you too. That’s what he does, lures people here and collects them. Right now he’s preparing to come back and hit you over the head. Then he will put you in a dark room and stick things in you until he’s bored. Then he will do it again and again and again. You must hurry. Please, I’m dying.” The voice faded into a wheeze.