But the song faded as he fought to breathe.
Maybe he wanted this.
Death, or life?
What way was easier?
Freedom, shitbird.
Run away from it all.
Sometimes there is no heroism. No courageous last stand.
Sometimes things just end.
He squirmed, and the Devil rocked back and forth excitedly, an infernal parasite on his chest. Johnny had always had fights. Some easy. Some hard. Some brutal. No matter what happened, Johnny always thought about the story he’d tell later, usually to Luke. He wanted to make it an engaging story, because really, next to his fab work, his fighting and drinking stories were the only thing that made him worth shit to anybody. A fight with the Devil would have qualified as a real keeper. But with these sick, burning fingers digging powerfully into his throat, the hard knee going deep, crushing his stomach and guts, the pain and hatred cast a web over his thoughts and all conclusions but one caught in its stickiness. It was simple truth, something he didn’t want to embrace, but he had to.
Sometimes there is no valor. No details. No dramatic crescendo.
Sometimes things just end.
It was plain now.
Johnny would not live to tell Luke this tale.
Chapter 23
Luke took a bath to ease his body, the whole time gritting his teeth.
Ballad-borne, the Frogmen lost little time and pulled him underneath.
Chapter 24
For the boy’s sake, Maribel could not fail.
But every way she tried to break into the car led to further disillusionment. She’d found the crossing guard’s heavy folding chair near the sidewalk and bludgeoned the car windows with its sturdy steel legs. The glass didn’t even crack. Then she found a brick near the flower garden under the window of the 1st grade classroom and launched it at the driver’s window. The brick shattered to red dust.
David moved inside the car like a deaf mute in distress. She couldn’t speak to the child. He made plaintive mumbling sounds and groped around the seats and dashboard. His skin had turned dark red, almost devil red, but it fluxed back and forth. Sometimes she thought she could see smoke rising off his flesh, and his crying was getting more intense and agonized; and then other times he looked like he was getting better.
How could he be getting better? It’s over a hundred degrees out here. It’s probably over two hundred in there.
A pit spread across Maribel’s stomach. She wasn’t going to get the child out. David would die. One of her students, under her watch, would suffer heat stroke, dehydration, and death.
Her heart felt like an industrial bellows about to pop all its rivets and explode with hellish fury. Sweat stung her eyes as she rounded the back wheel to look for a spare key, perhaps on one of those magnet things. Stooping near the trunk, she found a large yellow handle with the stenciled word EMERGENCY above it and to the side showed a stick figure picture of a child trapped in a car. Her mind rationalized it immediately. All automobiles have these, just for this type of thing. How stupid of me to forget.
She pulled the handle. Not only did the trunk open, but the rear half of the car folded back, thousands of individual pistons pushing the panels of steel rearward and coupling them with others. The back seat lowered with a hydraulic hiss and David hopped out. He no longer had red skin, but he did sport a pair of long horns.
Demonic or not, the child did not appear evil. He regarded her just as he would have in the classroom during a project. “Mrs. Rhodes, I want those pineapple ice creams.”
“Oh, David, we can’t go to Puppet Town right now. We have to get back to class.”
“Why?” he whined. His horns disappeared. He was just a regular little boy now.
“Where’d your horns go?”
“Someone borrowed them.”
“Oh.”
“So can we? Can we go get an ice cream? Pretty please?”
“I said no. Now come on, we have to go back to the classroom. Move along, okay?”
“Why can’t we go, real quick?”
Maribel bit her lip for a moment, stymieing her impatience. “For one thing, David, we’d have to drive there.”
“Na-ah, they have a new spot.”
He ran toward the empty street.
“David, get back here!”
Maribel chased after him, but her strides softened as she saw Puppet Town’s main entrance across the street. Wow, it wasn’t as far as I thought. Why did I always dread driving to this place? It’s always been here.
“Wait, David. We’ll get the ice cream, but you have to stay with me.”
“Okay.” The boy groaned. He slowed and put his little hands in his jeans pockets.
Maribel walked with him to the clown-tunnel entrance. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anybody had come out of the school, but the building was no longer there. The real estate office across the street from Puppet Town was in its place. Well, sure, I remember that being there.
Somehow, she and David must have found a short cut across town. Looking back at the amusement park, she noticed a large black curtain over the beer garden in the back. It was probably the only place in the park she’d never visited, since she’d always been with her class. A few feet away, near the mouth of the tunnel, sat a Jolly Green Giant doll. The doll looked so familiar it gave her pause. Where had she seen it before? Her mind raced but came up short. She stepped over to the doll, her tennis shoes somehow echoing throughout the parking lot. Where were all the people? This place should already be packed by this time of day.
Maribel had bent to retrieve the doll when a harsh wail rose from the tunnel.
David was gone.
She hurried into the darkness, through the obscenely wide mouth of the clown. The tunnel smelled as it always did, like water stagnant since the 1950s. Once she crossed over the threshold, she found David hunkering near a fountain. Spouts of water shot from it, suspended in the air with luminescent purple bugs splashing up through the jets. It was a pretty effect, and Maribel might have thought to examine it further if David hadn’t been in distress.
She knelt next to the boy. Above the ticket booths, flags made to look like 2 dollar bills rippled fiercely, despite the lack of heavy winds today. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want the ice cream?”
“I’m not allowed here!” he shouted into her face.
Maribel leaned back from the child. “David, we don’t yell.”
“Kiss my ass!” He hissed, jumped to his feet, and took off running for the exit.
Shaking her head, Maribel went to get him, deciding it was better that he was out of the park again and they could go back to the classroom.
But the clown tunnel’s mouth clamped shut in a satisfied grin.
Maribel rushed over and tried to pry the iron lips apart. Not only did they not move, they felt welded closed, as though the mouth had been built in that hideous smirk. On the other side of the wall, David’s shoes pounded the concrete as he ran.
Discordant whistles came from the Puppet Safari ride on the edge of the courtyard. Through the exaggerated African jungle, she made out the forms of a tribe of men, their skin supernaturally black and full of bloody bone piercings. Two carried a long spit with four human bodies charred in grisly positions, the wooden shaft inserted through their mouths and protruding out their asses.
Before they could see her, Maribel fled, holding a hand to her mouth, trying not to puke. She ran into Gracie’s Greek Coliseum, where puppet shows usually went on regularly all day. The marble stands were empty though and a scaffold stood in the center of the dirt combat circle. A dark gray horse hung by the neck from a series of ropes, tied off tautly at the corners of the wooden structure. A roasting pan beneath it caught blood as it plinked down from cuts in its flesh.
She shuddered and stepped back.
Words carved into the side of a horse: MURDER ME AND IT CANNOT WIN.
Maribel wanted to scream but she was afraid it would alert th
e Bone Men. Even the sound of her own breathing might bring them back, so she struggled not to go dizzy from the small breaths she took. It was quiet in the arena, but the ballad still penetrated her mind. The dead horse joined in the song. The creak of the rope. A rustling of wind through the matted mane.
Melodically, blood dripped from the coarse tail.
Chorus:
Dreams. Reality. Human. Divinity. Shapes. Colors. Play-set. Noticeable. Not now. They make the world unaware. Monkey bars. Dripping spinal fluid. Closer. Looks. Sharp, thorny spinal columns grow from the sand. Bone garden. Heart-attack. Exclaims, the bones are used for building new people, whatever otherwise God might tell you, the bones are used for building new people. They turn. Right on cue.
All but one. Man. Bench. Listens. Waits. Watches. Clown face tunnel. When? Bad song. Can’t. Bury. Xylophone. Dark massacre there. Mind. Broken. Answers. No. Questions. All. Eyes. Shadows. Entrails. Cries. Yep. Sure enough. Human.
“Hear? Me?” he asks. “Don’t. Let. It. Out. Save. Me.”
Verse 7: In Dash Display
Chapter 25
The ballad fired into her mind like a gun.
Dara had known it was coming, but like always, she had no idea exactly when the song would build to completion. She was due to leave the hospital tomorrow, now that the burns on her arms had started to heal with no signs of infection. The nurses went longer between visits. She took advantage of this and started working her right arm out of its sling. The left shoulder looked more bruised and hurt, so she let that arm remain in the sling. One arm was better than none. Next she had to go about the nasty, tiresome process of unwrapping the bandages and taking the excruciating IV out of her wrist. The machine let out a digital alarm. Pushing a button with a bell icon shut off the sound.
She put on the sky-blue terry bathrobe Maribel had brought her and went into the bathroom to wait for the ballad.
It took a little less than an hour before the nightmare fell upon her. The entire time Dara concentrated. When I open that door, I’ll be in the parking lot downstairs. Luke’s Volt will be there.
She tried to envision the new location, push her imagination to the limits, but when it was time and she grabbed the handle to open the door, it led to the Emergency Room. Nurses and doctors milled about the area, all wearing black scrubs and black face masks. Their eyes stared at her like cold lead.
Dara slunk out of the bathroom and made for the hallway to the main lobby. More people in black scrubs stood in the unlit hall. They watched her pass. They whispered to each other, “Chop off her tits. Chop ‘em off. Chop ‘em. Chop. Chop. Suck the fat out. Slurp!”
A door banged open, and Kyle Turner—a memory from high school—jumped out with a meat cleaver. His face took a beastly shape as he howled and sang, “Double Dee Dee. Double Dara. Why won’t you rub them in my face, you slut!”
The cleaver imbedded in the wall behind her. Kyle lunged, his freakish long blond hair flowing back like a golden cape. He looked like the young man she remembered, but his features were twisted and also resembled….
No….
Luke?
The resemblance passed as soon as it arrived. Now Kyle looked like a devil or demon, distorted and snarling, bitter with rage. A clawed hand grabbed her breast, and the thumb rubbed her nipple. Putrid breath blew in her face. “Those are good eaten tits right there. Soup time!”
Dara kicked the back of the monster’s knee and swept it off its feet. It struck the ground with a tremendous snapping sound.
She ran through gatherings of the dark-clad nurses and doctors, her free arm throbbing. She rested it over her sling. A few more steps and it slid off the side. The shoulder bone grated at the site of the break. Dara fought off a yelp and plowed through the front doors of the hospital.
The Volt sat in the parking lot, just as she’d envisioned it. She’d made it happen. The dream could be manipulated, even if she didn’t have complete control.
The doors were open and the keys were in the ignition. She got in and surveyed the sky. Four curtains hung in different areas. She could not distinguish hers from the others… Who had manifested the fourth curtain?
Dara had never been great at judging distance; and with the nightmare still influencing her, the atmosphere contracted at the far ends of her peripheral vision. The street across from the Rec center was still up-earthed from Luke’s nightmare, so she couldn’t drive through that way. She would have to exit her curtain first, the one that dropped in the barrio side of town, a place Johnny had once told her and Maribel to avoid. Funny…not only was the ghetto not scary to her in the least at this point, but had become a sanctuary.
All it took was hopping on the freeway and she could be there in fifteen minutes.
She turned over the ignition. The speedometer looked different. Instead of the normal display, a digital clock counted down minutes and seconds. It judged Time instead of speed.
As the car pulled forward, the numbers raced. She braked and the pace of the descending numbers slowed. Something didn’t feel right…what would happen when the timer went to zero?
She tried the doors.
Of course; locked.
She tried the auto locks and the manual locks. None of them moved.
Her arms hurt. This was going to be a tough drive. She pushed gently on the brake and, with a grimace, leaned over to shift the car into park. Instead of stopping, the wheels squealed and the car shot off, jumping a curb and screeching onto the main street. She headed to the freeway, flying around other cars in maniacal swerves. Numbers on the timer dropped so quickly that their intervals couldn’t be rightly distinguished on the display. Several drivers laid on their horns and others rapid fired them. As the Volt went through a red light, a semi truck raced at her. Dara ducked down in her seat and clenched her eyes closed.
She felt the impact and the car spun around twice, the force throwing her against the driver’s door. The semi drove on, pushing the Volt against an embankment near the freeway onramp. A terrible trembling hum vibrated deep in the tires. Dara grabbed the wheel in one hand and reefed on it, bones grinding in her broken shoulder. She stomped on the gas pedal. With a steel scream, the car dislodged from the semi’s grill and flew up the embankment. The distant foothills lifted in the windshield, disappeared for a moment, only the sun and the cloudless sky looking back at her. Her teeth glanced off each other and she bit her lip just as the car landed. Hundreds of cars were braking and fishtailing on the freeway; she couldn’t see them; she could hear them; she could picture the drivers’ wide-eyed, tight faces, Oh Shit forming on their lips as they tried not to hit her.
A small green sedan skidded into her, but the impact pushed her in the right direction. The Volt’s engine thundered, reborn. Green-gray smoke wormed its way out of apertures in the dash. The timer had reached less than eight minutes and quickly worked down to six, to four, to three.
The curtain draped over a high convenience-store sign off the freeway. She tried to direct her movement there, but the car veered toward the sheer drop-off before the exit. The brake wouldn’t work. She pulled at the parking brake and though it came up, nothing happened.
In the rear-view mirror, her parents gazed at her, motionless in their church clothes, still young and alive.
“You’re going with us now,” her father told her softly.
Her mother nodded. “Make it up to us, Dee. Do something right for a change.”
Dara cast her burning eyes away and then looked back once more. She had to. She had to see them again. How beautiful they were. Jesus Christ, she missed them so much!
Two Bone Men had replaced her parents. Their lips peeled back, showing jagged brown teeth. “They want it? Do you want it?”
Dara whipped back and searched the dash. She punched the odometer button, not expecting much. The car tilted away from the cliff and began to slow. After a minute, it stopped. Cars blazing blue fire whipped past her, their skeleton drivers indifferent.
The timer counted d
own to 10, 9, 8, 7….
At least the Bone Men weren’t in the back seat anymore.
Dara tried the doors again but they were still not giving. Feebly she slammed her shoulder into the driver’s side, felt something loosen inside her arm and spike through the muscle.
Her cry sounded like it came from another woman—someone in desperate need of help but wouldn’t get any.
She sobbed and thought of Luke and Maribel…it wasn’t fair she’d gotten this far only to end up trapped again.
Maybe this countdown wasn’t to an explosion?
Smoke plumed out of the vents, fiercely now, and filled the cabin.
Through the haze, the radio came on. “Give up, Dara,” said a staticky voice. “The pain will never stop. Luke’s already dead. Why not join him?”
She saw the dash number changing into a 1.
Chapter 26
Billions of pieces thrown everywhere.
Dara watched the explosion in slow motion, abject from the destruction, subject only to the pain. Her body fragmented like a porcelain doll—she realized immediately that an actual explosion would have ripped her apart in seconds. So what was the purpose here? Breaking away into glittering bits and parts, no lungs to fill with air and scream, but the pain was unbearable. All of her nerves ripped at once, re-formed and ripped once more, an atrocious process leading to the most staggering pain imaginable. Her parts were twisted between the flying scraps of metal, plastic and rubber, but her mind was intact, hovering over it all, possibly with billions of invisible connecting strands to each part and particle of what she once was. At her thought, the pieces moved about, the roar of agony was silent in the gradual expanding chaos of fire and meat. She tethered her arm closer, along with the muscle groups that made up her neck. Bones calcified and reformed, went into every appropriate socket. She reached out with her mind to rebuild her face…and then she paused.
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