Pushed the button to release the clasp.
Hello.
That’s the whole of page one.
Sets it down and lights a cigarette.
Sets his gun down beside him on the bed.
Turns to the second page.
He grew up to be a cold fuck. Looked at it and killed it, or couldn’t be bothered and just walked away.
But when he was young he had a home. Nothing fancy. Simple and clean. His parents died when he was 9. Fire. Local paper called it a real inferno. Maybe arson. They sent him to a home for foundlings.
ZIMMS
Bet you remember Zimms.
A dark place. Even by day.
Cold and hard. The matrons colder than death . . . and meaner than the pent-up sadistic, schoolmasters at Ichabod Crane who couldn’t figure out safe ways to fuck those little just-about-to-blossom schoolgirls you sat beside.
You remember those nights, don’t you?
Bet you well recall Mr. Stark too. The shiny black suit, those unsightly, black horn-rimmed glasses. That weapon-growl voice, and its unending, cold questions. Remember, or do you pretend its water under the bridge?
His expression doesn’t change but his eyes go cold. If there were any living thing within twenty feet of him at that moment it would be dead from the killing frost.
He’s seen strange. Walked where it walked. Dealt with it. Killed it.
And this is strange. Even to him. And when he finds her and the them she mentioned he’s going to kill them too.
Her last.
She’s going to wish she fucked him. She’s going to beg. Little miss Barbara and her honey-alto promises will be on her knees begging to fuck him or anything else he wants and . . .
ST turns to the next page.
Back with us now? Good.
Curious?
If you are we’ll get to that. For now follow the directions. When you get there we’ll speak again.
He reads the directions. The rest of the diary is blank.
He turns on the TV again. No Barbara. Nothing but snow and white noise on every channel. Decides to catch a few Z’s before heading out.
Three hours later. Washes his face. Checks the TV, still nothing. Walks out leaving the door open and the diary in the cheap waste can.
Steals another car.
6 hours west under clouds that announce summer’s over. In and out of grey open wounds those trying not to die call cities; he’s been drunk in a few, spread a rain of death-sleep over dreary orchards that didn’t have enough fire for suicide in others. Stops for a meal of eggs and toast and whiskey and to change cars three times.
Finds the next motel.
The directions stated the door would be unlocked and the room paid for. Just go in. Further instructions would be inside the room.
ST steps into the dark room. Gun leveled. Very ready. Flicks the light switch.
There’s a woman, young by her look, tucked under the covers. Lying there like she’s laid out in a casket in a funeral parlor.
He softly closes the door. Stares. Nothing in the room moves. No rise and fall of her chest. She’s not breathing.
Checks the bathroom. Empty.
Doesn’t touch the phone.
He didn’t expect a warm welcome, but this is . . .
“You want games, Barb. You’re going to get my best game.”
Standing over the woman. Pulls back the covers. She’s naked. A bullet hole in her chest.
Her hands are folded over her chest. A diary is in her hands.
On the night stand beside the bed a cigarette butt, his brand, and half a glass of whiskey. The imprint of blood red lipstick, no ice.
No smell of tobacco or red lipstick on the girl’s lips.
Carefully looks her over. Bettie Page cropped black hair, natural. Black lipstick. Black nails and heavy black eye makeup. Vampire bat earrings and a ruby nose piercing. One nipple pierced. Arms and shoulders and neck, legs, covered in ornate, expensive tats. Her sex is shaved. She’s his type. Would be. If she was alive.
And one in the heart is his method.
ST takes the book from her hands. Covers her back up.
Stares at his initials on the cover before releasing the clasp and opening it.
Some hello, huh?
Wanted you to feel at home. Is it working?
Au, poor little boy, no fucky-fucky for you. Unless you’ve acquired a taste for cold kisses. And dead pussy.
Maybe next time we’ll find something that can stand upright before it lies down.
So our wayward hell’s angel is out on the road, moving from yesterday to now in hot cars. Stopped for a quick meal and a pint I wager. Perhaps we’ve worked our way up to 5ths?
Pissed?
Turn on the TV and we’ll chat.
Closes the book. Sets it on the bed by the woman’s feet.
Lights a smoke and turns on the TV.
Barbara smiles through the exhaled whorls of the blue-grey cloud. Wiggles the fingers of her raised hand in a hello. Coughs. Then frowns. “Must you smoke those damn things? It took you long enough to get here. Are you getting old, or have you just grown more wary? You are quite the piece of shit aren’t you. Alive or dead, you just can’t seem to make it work.”
“Fuck you, Barb.”
“God, you’re still pissed I didn’t spread my legs for you. Well, maybe if you’re a good boy this time?”
“I’ve got something good to give you.”
She shivers as if excited, sexually. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Care to—”
“Not yet, sweetie. Read the instructions. Follow them. Ta-ta.” And the TV goes to white noise and snow again.
Trying to bring depth and focus closer he sits and smokes in the darkened room with the dead girl lying beside him before returning to the dairy.
You and Pamela. Vale Cemetery. Almost half drunk on cheap wine. Annie Green Springs piss, right? By old Doc Johnson’s headstone. Moonlight and skunk cabbage, and her shirt and her bra were mostly off . . .
Mr. Stark found your love poems to her in your English notebook. Read them aloud. Critiqued them for the whole class. They laughed, bruised you with their damning crisscross of hushed gossip and scathing looks in the halls after.
He sent a note to the headmistress of Zimms and she took over your instruction.
Did you find Miss Gross’ bed of torture inspiring?
Really doesn’t matter. Just keep following the directions.
So he does.
This time he’s to take the body with him. And go to a graveyard he knows all too well and inter the girl.
X marks the spot, Sweetie.
65 mph on the Interstate in a stolen car. Dead woman in the trunk.
Arrives by moonlight. Parks in the woods at the south end. Carries the body to the grave.
Dr. Byrne Mayer Johnson. Stone hasn’t moved an inch in a quarter century.
There’s a shovel resting on the headstone.
He digs.
Finds another diary covered in sheer white cloth and plastic. Takes the book. Leaves the girl.
When he’s done tossing the dirt back in the hole he sits and opens the diary.
The night you ran away you killed Miss Gross. Strangled her while you were thrusting, filling her hard loneliness with your fear.
She didn’t make a sound.
But her eyes screamed.
Took the money she had in her purse and got on a bus.
You fell in with demons. Stole. Tried to stay away from the insensitivity and menace you saw in the buzzing neon. Looked in windows to find things. Took them. Ran with the blood drinkers until you saw her.
Waif. Little monster girl -- blood-dreams on her fingers -- dead, but it had yet to lie down. Sweet poison you just had to touch. To taste.
She talked to you. Frail words of darkness, cool and tender. Wrote your name in her book of sand and make-believe fate. Etched it beside the ivy scrawl of her haunted, tar-paper black runes. You ga
ve her your blood and fell for her.
Fell into her hunger.
Kissed the bleeding compass tattooed over her heart.
Killed them so they wouldn’t kill her.
And what she wanted you to kill for her you did.
Then you killed her.
Gave her body to the ghouls. But wouldn’t dine with them. All night long you sat there as they begged and cajoled. “Come and try,” each one whispered.
Tell the truth. You thought about it.
Can you remember her name? Do you remember the timbre of her last breath? “Everything beautiful . . . dies.” Was she holding your hand tenderly at the last?
Remember, daredevil, once you step over the line, there’s no retreat from oblivion.
ST closed the book. Left.
Drove.
Zoomed east.
The grey, open-grave cities shrieked like things in need of emergency rooms. He didn’t turn on the car radio to hear the calls for help. And he was afraid Barbara’s voice would come out of it.
He wasn’t playing Barbara’s malignant game anymore. Her madness was her madness. He’d lived it up—almost—sometimes, and watched it go down. All the way down.
Old wounds that hadn’t healed and she was ripping them open. Pouring in restless and salt. And old lies dressed in old promises. This time around they weren’t seamless and he wasn’t a dry idiot locked in a cage hoping for the softest touch.
A small town in the coarse muzzle of rough weather. Robs a closed-up-at-7 liquor store. Smashes more than he takes. Rides across the state line with his whiskey. Finds a place to let it rock him to sleep.
Half a bottle in. On the bed, gently fingering old dreams. Shivers when the nightmares enter his trip back to broken hearts. Wolves and claws, sinister teeth, tear the curves and whispers.
The pretty girls, dark and tender. Lost. Lonely. Velvet and wine, in his arms.
Lays them down softly . . . Comfort.
And they go away . . .
And he’s left with the blood.
Drowning in shadows . . . His need a weight . . .
Arms of velvet and wine . . .
He needs another.
Drives, a hellbound fast-train hunting, until he finds one.
Thin. Pale. Cold. No place to go. Sick of the play and its plague of no futures.
He has a bottle. A room away from the stage with no rain. Shows her his heart.
She takes his hand. He sells his soul . . .
Wonder again. The skin on her arm is a thousand miles long. Sweet talk whispered. Desire. Flame. Sweet poison. He lets her rob him blind. From eye and delta she takes faith and spirit. Leaves only flesh and bone. He takes all her pain . . . For a moment, at last . . . tired hearts . . .
One . . . expires.
In the dark, minutes later, no magic in the air, he wonders if it was all just a dream.
. . . Her. He’s already forgotten her name, that girl, stashed in the trunk. Back. The road to them. Back. In the city by dead river of muddy water and industrial waste. Back. Through the old iron gates. Home, as close as he ever had. No god, no saints, in this hiding place. Under the lawns of departure, the nightshade Labyrinth of Requiems where angels and other things that have collapsed are laid to rest.
Stands before the dead breed. Offers his offering of summer set.
Watches as the Grave Keepers hold it tightly. No woe in their eyes, no hint of bereavement on their hyena faces. Watches as they, unable to conquer the lunacy of their fever, tear at the throat, at the small pale beast, split the skull, froth . . . Feast.
The tang of crimson joy fills the chamber . . .
And he leaves . . .
“Time to end this.”
Drives . . .
A Ford . . . Through the night . . . Could be cactus or a chicken joint or sleeping factories or canyons or hobo camps hunkered down against the frost hidden in the darkness. Steals an Impala, this end of the city to that side and beyond. A V-8 Chevy Silverado. Over small dark hills and out of the thunder-thick weather.
Another town with no name . . . Steals a Dodge . . .
Sees no fools. No kids or chins or shipwrecks or clocks or razzmatazz or outlaws or signals or healers . . . No song or voices come to his ears . . . Moving quickly under the unarmed silence of the stars no dharma tunes come to him . . . Passed the forest of night cluttered with the open dreams of things that feed on weakness and tears . . . over bridges . . . passed unworthy and mythical . . . and function and diversion and take-it-or-leave-it . . . passed irritating misfortunes, now scrambled off to bed . . . Revved-up, he fails to notice current tactics playing cat ‘n’ mouse with her first dance . . .
Stops in Tillman. Next to a pawn shop and a check-cashing Mom and Pop, both closed, eats. Eggs and toast. No meat.
Gets a room and opens the book for the second time.
Always sick and tired. Always running. From ruin? Why? It’s everywhere.
And you can never stay away.
It touches you. There is no passage away. You cannot hide in trees or behind mountains. No normal street with lawns and childrens’ bikes and Sunday barbecues by the pool will hold you. Midnight is everywhere.
The time has come for you to grow up and come in from the cold.
ST turns on the TV.
“Hello.” Barbara says.
He lights a smoke.
She doesn’t say, must you, but her smile dims a bit.
“News has come to me you’ve given them another one.”
He nods.
“You know I have the cure. The only thing I’ve ever wanted for you is to share in it. The rest was a mistake. You were young . . . And I didn’t understand.”
His lips part. Says nothing. Takes a drag off the smoke instead.
“This is crazy.”
“Finally we agree,” he says.
She smiles. Hopeful.
“Reunion?” he asks.
Barbara nods. “The day after tomorrow there will be a moon. A moon is fitting, don’t you think?”
A quiet, dry tone: “There was a moon that night. One at the start, one when it comes to its end.”
“End . . . There is a village of ghosts in the desert. On the far end of town is a weathered brothel where hard men shivered in the arms of well-fed women who could strip those who claimed no sin of far more than cash. It, though closed these many years, has a well-stocked bar. I’ll be waiting for you there. I’ll be the heartbreaker with the bottle of Jameson.”
A half laugh. But something different, almost sad, in his eyes.
From her a full smile.
He remembers how she could light up the world.
She sees it in his eyes. Hopes.
“Will you sleep tonight?” she asks.
“I’ll try.”
“Goodnight, then.”
ST turns off the TV.
Lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling. He remembers “Kind of a Drag” playing. Slow dancing with her. Barbara’s hips pressed to his. Her lips by his ears . . .
Hears her sing softly . . .
Steals his last car. Heads into the setting sun . . .
Colors he can’t recall paint the sky . . .
The road becomes no road . . .
Moon rides high. Clouds herded to its right.
A lone cactus stands sentinel at the crest of the hill.
Perhaps once someplace to be, perhaps once unique, now forgotten by the big sky and all that sits under it, her ghost town. Dead. Not even a ghost. The desert has reclaimed all, even the simple, scarring markers on Boot Hill.
The brothel, out of captivating and Saturday night salvation. Parts of the sagging roof are wind worn, torn, and ready to cave. The front door looks like it wants to lie down in the dust and sleep. All the windows are dusty, but still intact. The merest hints of what might have been red and yellow paint yet to exit the boards of the outer walls look like stains.
Parks in front of the doors.
Stands there and smokes. Takes
off his shoulder holster and tosses it and his gun on the front seat.
Worn boot heels on the steps.
Perhaps uncertain of her legs, she does not stand when he comes in.
“They said you had filled out well,” she opens with instead of hello. You have, she thinks.
“You look the same . . . Good.”
Thanks in her eyes, on her lips.
He crosses the room. She finds her legs, stands. Can’t decide if she should hug him or not. Pours two drinks. Hands him one.
He takes it.
They sip.
She’s dreamed of this meeting a hundred times.
He’s thought about this meeting a hundred times.
Her red shoes two steps from him.
His black boots two steps from her.
World’s apart.
Closer now.
She sets down her glass.
As does he.
She steps forward.
Almost touching.
Demon. Murderer.
He feels her heat. Her desire.
Almost touching . . .
Mouths open . . .
Almost words.
Almost.
He steps back. Breathes.
Takes out a small, razor-sharp knife . . .
She steps back from its loud clarity.
. . . Cuts along the outer shore of his face . . . Fingers dig under the skin of his brow and pull the flesh down . . . Reveals his true face to her.
Her eyes wide, lips parted . . .
His true face, not a mirror of hers as it has not partaken of flesh.
“The son, in his inmost depths, desires his mother. Flesh of his flesh, to have and to hold . . . You brought me into this world. This madness of fever and frost that lies between us . . . I will take you . . .”
The flash of a smile on her face. She steps forward.
“out . . . and by consuming you . . .”
Frozen. The backbone of her conception shattered.
“will enter the world you wished for me.”
A hiss of disappointment and disbelief from her as his blade, a barrage of fire and lightning in her bewilderment, slices deep and across her throat.
Shock as she goes limp and is transported . . . Exhausted, about to be null and void.
Tears. He holds her as she bleeds out. Kisses her as her last breath flees her body.
Licks her warm dark blood from a fingertip.
Somehow she has slipped out of her red shoes . . .
The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1 Page 6