He seems to drift, losing focus. I worry something is wrong. I figure talking might eat the time, so I want to carry on, but then he stops, eyes shifting to an even darker shade—a void—and shuts down.
“Must let me work the blood properly now, kiddo. I’ve only tested this on lizards and insects. Their appreciation is magnified when I really work the blood.”
With so many more questions I want to ask, I squeeze out one before he settles in to work the blood properly.
“Why me?”
“Why not?” Then, more precisely, “Luck of the draw.”
“Nothing but chance?”
“Let me work the blood now. I know how you feel. You’ll really learn to appreciate the sassiness of patience once I shut up.”
He settles back, pulling the shadow fabric to his shoulders. Closes his eyes. Cats curl into every crevice of his silhouette. Immediately, the orbs speed into action beneath the lids. A stone skips across his still features, birthing ripples that threaten to devour the flesh.
I back away, to the stone block that houses the syringe. Slump against the cold hardness. Wrap my arms around myself, the chill more from within than ambient.
I am this close to experiencing the Centipede in all its miraculous glory.
All I have to do now is be patient.
Chapter 27 Blake
The Midwest bled the life from those more accustomed to the idiosyncrasies found on the outer edges of America. As Blake drove the rental toward 1927 Learnard Avenue, the landscape cried out for chaos. Lawrence, Kansas, could be anywhere in the Midwest, USA.
The only thing that distinguished their trek was familiarity. Even the sparse people outside of homogeneous homes seemed cut from the same white cloth. Their prying eyes and putty faces lacked personality. Nothing here inspired. Hence, there was often a sense of sleepwalking uniformity that made Blake uneasy, never wanting places like this to infect him. As if he had any better aspirations, perhaps settling into old age and becoming one with the architecture, the furniture—whatever—would be less grueling than the life he had undertaken. Yet despite his cheerless demeanor, the life he had chosen was better than this. At least he was still fighting. A losing battle in the end—it was for all of us—but he would not go down without bloodied knuckles and a sense that at least he got something out of his life.
Jane had found a shop with information, maps and more, where they found a slim pamphlet on Burroughs’ home.
“It’s been made a historic site, yet funds haven’t followed up to make it a museum or even a tourist attraction.”
“Burroughsland?” Blake raised a brow as he said this, looking askance at Jane.
“Sure. Admission is one soul.”
“That’s if you still have one.”
Blake could see a laugh struggling to escape Jane’s face, but she glanced away, not allowing it free reign, and got back to the pamphlet.
“Many don’t see Burroughs as anything but a druggie who decided to die here and would prefer to leave this legacy and the possibility of fans, drifters, low-lifes”—she paused, taking it in—“it actually is written here, just like that, “low-lifes”—as if it’s a warning.” She harrumphed. “Druggie” as well, not even junky.” She continued. “At this time, it is in limbo. The house is locked up and empty.”
“Poor saps can’t imagine anything shaking up their placid lot in God’s country. I can understand the sentiment, some place to retire to. Most of the folks we’ve seen are far from that age.”
“It’s both a university town and one of the ten most popular retirement towns in America.” Blake glanced at Jane as she tapped the pamphlet. “A wealth of information.” Slim lips creased, smiling.
Blake glanced back to the road, the roll-call of street signs. Time sighed, waiting…
“There. Learnard Avenue.”
Turning down the road, he slowed to a snail’s pace, and then realized the ridiculous nature of his move. Just look for a red cottage.
They saw it to their right, set back a bit, weeds in abundance, a sense of disarray on display. Not exactly a cottage, but cottage enough.
“I’d say the efforts to make this anything more than a dilapidated reminder housing ghosts without distinction—”
“The norm here,” Jane said, reading Blake’s thoughts.
“—have fallen deep into the well of negligence. A historic site. A sight to bruise eyes.”
They parked in front of the red cottage. Blake’s intuition ratcheted up a notch, yet his mind and eyes saw hope as lean. Still, intuition usually won out.
“Even the paint’s faded. I’m not feeling too confident, Blake.”
“What’s confidence got to do with anything? My intuition says, let’s get out and take a closer gander.”
Jane gave him a look he could not read, somewhere between the whittled confidence she normally expressed, and a belief they’d gotten this far primarily because of his intuition.
They exited the rental car and walked to the front porch. An abundance of cats, most of them plump and furry, scurried about the yard, dallied toward them, yet kept their distance.
Blake took in the neighborhood, the blank slate awaiting inspiration: a charcoal line, a swipe of the paintbrush. He also noticed curtains from a house across the street ripple closed, and a man with a lawnmower, the engine praying loudly to the dimming blue sky, take notice of their trespass, but before he turned away, the man was back to cutting the grass to the perfect length. A white picket fence surrounded him, his cage as defined by the 1950’s American standard of success.
It seemed such a time warp, this place.
Despite his regular relations with those who lived in the margins, the junkies, drifters and low-lifes, Blake found that splintered lifestyle more appealing than this.
He was a masochist for sure.
When they made the porch, their weight causing the wood to awaken, Blake said, “Tell me something about Burroughs.”
“Why?” Jane brushed her hands together, as if cleansing herself, but she’d yet to touch anything.
A gray tabby cut the distance and coiled around her ankles. She rose on one heel and gently nudged it away. It protested, yet moved on.
“Amuse me.”
“Well, the basics, he was a junky, heroin being his primary vice, who wrote some fascinating experimental novels dealing with—”
“No. Tell me something about him. The man. Interests. Not the patented wiki-bio shit.” Blake tried the doorknob, getting the expected and receiving no success.
Jane paused, pursed her lips, then said, “Well, he believed in subverting the norm. Detested systems of control, authority and otherwise.”
Blake stepped off the porch, circled around the house.
Jane followed in a rush, dancing around the dried weeds and more stray cats that followed them. She shielded her eyes against the sun’s setting glare burnishing the windows with kisses goodnight.
“And…well, he lived the life of the outsider with conviction. He also had many deep interests: the occult, I’ve seen a clip on YouTube, just a snippet, of him performing some ritual related to something of this nature. And science. Information, in general. Varied.”
Blake nodded his head, “Hmph,” then stopped. He knelt down, touched a stone with a named etched into it.
“What’s this?”
“Part of his pet cemetery, I expect. He loved cats—”
“Loved cats?”
“Yes. Seems they’re still keeping watch over his humble abode,” she said, hands outstretched to the growing feline audience. “I don’t remember the quote, but he once noted he had no wherewithal when it came to love, yet with cats, that was all the love he needed.” She put her hands on her hips, watching Blake.
“Science. The occult. A different thinker in general. Loved cats.”
“I’m sure there’s much more, but I’m also sure we did not come here to write his biography.” Jane brushed her hands together again.
Two liz
ards raced across the side of the house. Blake peered in their direction and noticed the bustling insect life that scurried about at the base of the house. He stroked one of the cat grave markers again, thinking. He lifted the stone with Lone Joe etched into the hard surface.
“What in the world are you doing, desecrating the poor kitty graveyard?” Jane said.
“Looking for something,” he said, setting the stone back in place, and picking up another one: Betsy. Then another, continuing the process.
“Do you think Marlon’s hiding under one of those?”
Blake tilted his eyebrow her way, an aloof statement to the madness in progress, thinking about cats, all the strays here. Strays not chasing the lizards or messing with the insects. Just twitching their tails and licking themselves and purring gleefully. And watching them. Just here, as if all of the creepy elements are simpatico. As if this is home. As if…
“Ruskie. Russian slang, right?” Blake asked.
“Yes, he had many cats, but one of his faves was Ruskie, a Russian blue—”
“Blue? We’re back to blue?” Blake’s faced split into a smile. He teetered down to the large stone, touching it, with no results. Then:
“What, pray tell, are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
“Just waking up my inner feline,” Blake said, leaning forward, tongue stretching toward the stone. Like a cat, his intuition was inclined to take a licking…or give one.
The cats around the perimeter bounded into action, stomping and circling around them.
A sound like a roll-up door being cranked open struck him like a blow. They both stepped back, Jane practically stumbling, while Blake rose up, wary.
A rectangle opening near the house where the insects and lizards had scampered, opened up, a filthy maw. The dirt atop the hidden door piled at the edges.
“That…is some trippy shit,” Blake said.
Jane was flummoxed. “What the…? How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But with the info you gave me, well…” He shrugged his shoulders. Something in the information had led him to explore a bizarre avenue, one beyond Learnard Avenue. One not on a map, and leading to a hole in the ground large enough for a person to enter.
“We really need to find a way to package and market this intuition deal you’ve got going. We could make a fortune,” Jane said, as they both approached the hole.
Stairs stretched down into a darkness. She shivered . Blake sighed, knowing what was next. He reached inside his trench coat to a zippered pocket, unzipped and pulled out a small but strong pen light.
He clicked it on and said, “We can look into that after we look into this.” Nodding to the hole, the stairs, and the darkness.
Chapter 28 Chernobyl
The engine idled at a quick pace, running hot. Rudolf wondered if this had anything to do with his presence, with what he could inspire when his control was lax, distracted. Yet he did not feel he was lacking control, despite the hunger filling his belly and veins; his mind.
Perhaps it was just a sign of his impending meltdown, whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not.
None of this mattered as much as what he caught view of from his perch along the curb, two houses down from a fading red abode.
“Well, well, Cowboy,” he said, his voice scratchy, bad reception on a dying radio. “So you’re a part of this, too.”
His focus narrowed, pulling away from the gong-rattle mayhem inspired by the internal homing device in his head, his bones, his being. When he’d barged into the dilapidated warehouse outside of Lafayette, Louisiana, spotting Marlon Teagarden just as he disappeared, the sound clutter had been a caterwauling din he’d never experienced before. Now, the decibels had fangs.
There was more going on with Teagarden than he’d ever conceived. This stealthy trip, bouncing between here and wherever, along a path leading to some sort of narcotic, perhaps hallucinogenic elixir of incomparable audacity, must be part of the reason he was zeroed in on Marlon with such intensity, but what of his own needs, his own obligations? He did not linger on how it would play out. His employer, riding in a van behind him, would get Teagarden, that’s the gist of their deal. Rudolf was, if nothing else, a man of his word, no matter his questionable status as human. He would hand over Teagarden and worry about payment later. If his employer wanted the drug for himself, that would cost much more but, even at that, Rudolf wasn’t too sure if he would give it up.
After all, his body and mind demanded more. Need coursed through him, a panther stalking a gazelle, waiting patiently. Sharing with a hyena was not necessarily a part of the bargain…and his employer was definitely a hyena.
Peering into the dying light, the sun shadowing the world in slivers of glare and obscurity, he watched as the man in black he’d met a couple days ago in Roswell, New Mexico—perhaps less a chance meeting, than an unfulfilled introduction, since his presence here meant he was in some way looking for the same thing Rudolf was looking for; which also meant Cowboy had followed-up on Rudolf’s handiwork on the woman in the hotel room—as he squatted along the side of the red house more like a cottage, touching stones, lifting some up, inspecting them. This curious display rendered Rudolf mute.
A woman he vaguely remembered from Roswell—a flashing snippet of memory put her on the street, near an indistinct rental car, yet also taking in the odd exchange—pretty in a sharpened knife way, stood next to Cowboy, her stance preparatory, not relaxed. Cowboy leaned down, face to the ground—to a large stone?—and abruptly, she stumbled backward, almost toppling to the ground. Cowboy was swift to rise and back away as well.
Rudolf was locked in, concentrating, uncertain of what the hell was going on, yet intent on finding out. He’d just let them finish whatever they were up to, then take them out and take over. It might help lead him to his prey, the gazelle.
A knock on his window did not draw his visual attention away from Cowboy and the woman, though Rudolf pressed the button and automatically lowered the window a few inches.
“Are we ready? He wants to know if we’re ready.” The man was wiry as beef jerky, tough. A scar along his jawline and the nervous tic in his left eye did not go well with the expensive dark gray Armani suit he draped over his frame: brutta figura. Rudolf wondered if the nervous tic and generally jittery stance were inspired by Rudolf’s present, less than handsome appearance. What lived inside him had awakened, courtesy of the drug, even if just the frayed edges of the drug; the searing promise and the way it changed his appearance might inspire even the toughest grunt to question their own grit and rumble ideals.
Rudolf did not turn to face him, though the desire to smile through the corruption needled his sadistic streak. He continued to watch Cowboy and the woman converse. Cowboy reached into his trench coat and pulled something out. He expected a gun, but a bright light beamed from the end of the object. As he watched, he said, “When I say we are ready, I will let you know. Until then, do not disturb me. You won’t like the repercussions of interrupting Rudolf Chernobyl again. Understood?” Rudolf said this casually, as if speaking about the weather. He peripherally gauged beef jerky’s tough façade as it crumbled just a tad. Just enough to let him know his silence was confirmation of understanding as he walked back to the white van.
Then Rudolf saw something impossible. Cowboy and the woman walked toward the side of the red house. As they progressed, they seemed to shrink, sinking into the weeds grown rampant. Disappearing, not as Marlon had done, but in a way that left him perplexed.
“No,” he said, bleating his disapproval, shoving the door open and breaking into a sprint. Only a handful of seconds passed as he ran to the side of the red house, yet that was quite long enough to give Cowboy and his woman their path to Marlon—it had to be—or possibly an escape route from his piercing glare.
They hadn’t seen him.
No way had they seen him.
Lizards and insects landscaped with curious intent. They manipulated dirt and weeds in front of the bleached
red wood.
Rudolf clenched his hands, sparks crackling in the womb of each fist. He stepped back, closed his eyes, breathing deep to derail the fiery fury within, replaying all he had just witnessed. The internal homing device warranted attention as well. Such noise, less a sound and more a bulldozing force decimating his focus. He had to push it aside, battle within the cranial arena and pin it to the floor.
Instant replay left him unsatisfied, nothing to really hold on to. Something mysterious had happened here. Something he needed to figure out, and fast. He stopped the looped replay at the point when Cowboy and the woman had stumbled backward. Whatever had just happened was connected to whatever Cowboy had just done. Rudolf knew this, knew he was correct. But what had he done?
He leaned forward, his face masked by the weeds. Leaned forward…
Rudolf opened his eyes. An orange cat weaved between his legs. He kicked it hard with the tip of his white alligator skin boot. The cat hissed. More cats flitted about or luxuriated in the weeds.
Names were written on stones all around. He read them and figured this was a graveyard of sorts, for animals. Perhaps the cats were paying respects to their fallen relatives. He took in the names: Lone Joe. Betsy. Ruskie. A few more fading names he could not make out.
He fidgeted, anxious, knowing Marlon was near, yet uncertain of where. If the internal homing device was correct, he was very close. “If” being tendered only because of previous events. Rudolf already knew the house would be empty. If Cowboy and the woman hadn’t gone in the house, there was no reason for him to even consider it a possibility.
Ruskie. Russian. The stone glimmered moistly as he stared at it. He rubbed his eyes. The stone still glimmered. Cowboy had leaned forward.
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