“It’s a burn,” he said lamely, shrugging one spastic shoulder.
««—»»
“Did you find out what it was?” he asked Bob in the latter’s biology at four o’clock.
“Sure thing,” the other teacher replied. “It’s an amniotic mass. The amnion is the membrane that encloses a fetus. It contains a thin fluid the baby is suspended in, lined with ectoderm and covered in mesoderm germ layers, creating a cushion for its protection against the mother’s slings, arrows, and knock-down drag-outs. Rarely an infant is born with some of this adhering to its face, maybe covering the whole head. The old wives’ tale term is caul. Legend says that kids born with cauls are destined to have second sight. That’s, like, so cool. I’ve never seen anything but pictures before. Where did you get this one?”
“Found it, pressed like a flower in a family bible I got at a garage sale,” Peter lied.
“Don’t suppose you’d consider letting me keep it?” Bob wanted to know. “I’d really like to show my students Monday. I’ll give it back after that.”
Peter managed a grin. “You can have it. Keep it as a part of your regularly exhibited stash. Bob’s Believe It Or Nots.”
God, Pete sure as shit didn’t want it. It made his sphincter clench.
“Anyway, Bob, you have a great weekend and I’ll see you Monday…”
“You do the same, dude.”
He turned and they both saw Jerry Fu-Schaech ambling past the class, glancing through the door’s window in a manner he probably believed was the proper pose for surreptitiousness. Trying to see if the room was empty, if he could slip in for free stuff.
“Yeah, As if, Fuckstick,” Bob muttered, using the nickname the kids had for Jerry. He glared until the art teacher went away.
“Think he’s noticed yet?” Pete whispered.
Bob had peed in Jerry’s special chair. Late on a Friday a few weeks ago, giving it all the weekend to dry under the air conditioning. So far nobody remarked on the smell which seemed to emanate from Jerry when he sat there. And some of it evidentally rubbed off on the seat of his pants because even his students were giving him funny looks now.
“Don’t care if he ever notices,” Bob said. “Sometimes you just got to leave your mark, a protest albeit so humble. Sometimes it’s the smallest, albeit most outrageous acts that even things out.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER 16
“…he tasted in all its acute savor the joy
of physical pain, and after two or three
experiences of such delights he altered his
book, making a curious sign in vermilion on
the margin of the passages where he was to
inflict on himself this sweet torture.”
—Arthur Machen
The Hill of Dreams
Peter tried not to think about coughing up that caul. He’d hoped it would turn out to be something simple, like a human hairball type of thing. A textured ectoplasmic bile-form, natural process with which he’d simply been heretofore unfamiliar. The face on it would then have turned out to be nothing but an illusion.
Because how could this have come out of him? Amnion? Stuff that covered a fetus. A woman’s reproductive organs kind-of-item.
He’d had a vision where he’d been a young girl in precarious labor. He’d had a womb, milk-bursting breasts. And it hadn’t seemed weird to him that he possessed these things. He hadn’t tried to shriek “Hey, where’s my penis?”, because Rosaluna didn’t have that and he’d become her. He was her with perfect recollections about each violation she’d endured. Painful humiliation on a physical and psychological level. Helplessness on a cosmic scale.
And then being the baby without thoughts in language to describe its suffering in.
And then being the young actress, insane after days of torture. Vagina again, breasts again, dying again.
Could Bob have made a mistake about what the stuff Pete coughed up was composed of? Maybe he’d merely puked up a mass from his birthday dinner the night before. Who knew what some of these ethnic restaurants used for meat? Might have been lamb or veal (or cat or dog) and merely threw Bob off track.
Maybe Bob was joking.
Bob had that curious sense of humor. Peter made a mental note to walk up to the biology teacher Monday in the lounge and laugh it off. Had me goin’ there, pal.
Peter drove out of the school parking lot, headed for the Ventura Freeway, and found himself at Staub’s instead of home. He’d gone the opposite direction from the school. See, he wanted to try to tell Diane he was sorry about last night. Buy some flowers. But it wasn’t where his subconscious took him.
Well, so maybe he wanted to ask Dunk where that snuff photo came from. Had the German ordered it from eBay? Were there more?
Except he now figured the importance of its origins were diminished, considering the second photo Pete had sampled at the school.
So far the only pics to cause visions—or whatever the blazes these rifts in his mental routine could be—were the one from 1954 and the other from 1947. Two old photographs, black and white. Dead people in them.
But he’d tried other photos of dead folk. The war pics. Too new? Was color a prohibitive factor?
Then, what about the old still from the 1956 train wreck? There’d been an abundance of dead people in black and white.
Had there been an innovation in developer by then?
Did that make a difference? Some weird type of chemical they’d used? A little Kodak, a little voodoo herb. Vampire piss from the native soil in the bottom of a dark bomb shelter.
Bullshit.
There must be another contributing factor. Something which connected those two pictures and caused this freakazoid reaction in him.
He went into Staub’s. Dunk looked up from several boxes on the counter.
“You ahkay dis ahvdernoon, Pete?”
“Yeah, guess I drank too much. I was kind of sick all night.”
“You shtill look zick.”
Peter looked away, shuffled his feet. “Yeah. Say, you ever have reactions to any of the old-style chemicals they used to use in photography? Or does that stuff evaporate or have a short half life or something?”
“No. I alvays vear deeze. Dat vay I never shmudge duh pics.” Dunk held up his hands.
Peter never noticed before that Friedhof wore disposable cloth jeweler’s gloves when handling merchandise.
“Vell, I vent do eshtate zales dis mornink. Bought zome gut shtuff. Vun lady vas Maryjane Vilzon, duh actress vrom a few awf duh meadgrinders made in Death Valley in duh late ’60s. You know, duh vun dey dought vas vun awf Charlie Manzon’s girls ahn Shpann’s ranch? I got shtills vrom her perzonal collection. Dinks I don’t remember in duh movies demzelves.”
“No shit?”
Peter went over and Dunk handed him some.
“Shouldn’t I wear gloves, too?”
Dunk laughed and gave him a pair from a gross of them sitting in a box behind the desk. “Ya, here…”
Peter put on the gloves and handled the pictures carefully at the corners.
“Oh, my God! Look… Is that…? Could that be…?” Peter pointed, very excited.
The German peered closely. He took out a magnifying glass to help his older eyes get a better look at where Peter was indicating.
He gasped. “I dink id is! I dink dat’s Manzon! Vhat a dizcovery dis is!”
Peter whistled. “You ought to make good bucks for this. You might be able to sell it to a news station.”
Dunk shook his head, showing white roots beneath the black hair. He winked. “No, collectors alvays pay better. Dere are zome who’d kill each otter var a chance at somedink like dis.”
Peter grinned. Noticed another box. “Have you seen what’s in this one yet?”
Dunk shrugged. “Zome early Vamous Mondzers awf Vilmland in duh mint condition, zome home-cranked videos awf shlasher porn—Behind duh Green Door meets I Shpit awn Your Grave vannabees. Ah, und dis… A cop’s s
hcrapbook. Id’s auld. 1930s drough duh ’50s. Villed vit death votos. I get dem zomedimes. Collections kept by duh soldiers, surgeons, coroners, duh highvay department in charge awf poop-scoopink collizions.”
Peter’s interest piqued. Not what he was normally interested in. He preferred horror movies over even the grisliest reality. The only reason he’d liked the picture of the real dead girl Dunk had given him for his birthday was because it came from a legendary movie.
1930s to ’50s. Generally about the time as the two pics he’d had his—why the hell not just go ahead and call them visions. Until he knew better, Pete had no reason to suspect he was merely losing his mind.
“May I see that scrapbook?”
Dunk grinned and handed it over. “Ya, pal. Knock yourzelf awt.”
There was a snap of static that only Peter seemed to notice. He opened it somewhere in the middle. Saw a photograph, horrible, gut-wrenching. A dead teenager with a baby just out of her, umbilical cord wrapped around its neck. In her right hand was another picture, of a man hung up in utility wires.
Underneath was a handprinted name: ROSALUNA PASOLINI.
Her age and the date of the crime.
Cause of death.
And the words WITHOUT RESOLUTION.
Peter shivered, knees wobbling.
Yet Dunk didn’t notice, having turned his attention to a customer who’d just come into the store. A double-take sort. Old woman, Victorian dress, high-collar and so-stiff-backed into uprightness she must have been strapped into a whale-bone corset.
“Can I help you vit zomedink?”
She asked in a voice of acidic sweetness, “Aidez-mois, si’l vous plaît. Je voudrais acheter Le Viol du Vampire?”
“Par Jean Rollin?”
“Oui.” Out of her eyes, was that a ruby tear?
“Par ici, Madame. Un original spectacle. Aussi, Le Frisson des Vampires.”
“Chouette! Merci!”
“Pas de quoi.”
Peter was impressed. He didn’t know Dunkel spoke French, although he’d overheard him converse in Spanish with customers.
Peter brought the book up, near as he dared, closing his eyes. He sniffed. Trying to be casual, feeling like some perv getting a whiff of panties. But he wasn’t doing that, honest. He simply didn’t want to lick it, right there, in public. Didn’t want a repeat of the frightening displacement he’d felt at the restaurant. It was a loathsome thing to do and he didn’t want Dunk to see him doing it again.
Sure he collected the most extreme graphic horror but he wasn’t weird. He wasn’t a deviant who ought to be registered and kept away from regular folks.
Yet he was so drawn to it, knowing this was just too buggy, too massive a coincidence to be a coincidence. Hell, give him a break. What were the odds here?
He smelled it. Got a wash of nearly wolflike perceptions: dust, blood, ozone (rain?), fish, spoiled peaches, shit, whiskey, and cigar smoke.
At the edge of his ears—but…inside them or out?—and he heard more or less distinctly, “Only you can heal us.”
He quickly closed the book.
He waited until Dunk was finished with the customer, then said, “I’d like to buy this. How much?”
««—»»
He came in with the bouquet, leaving the scrapbook in the car for now. He’d retrieve it later. He didn’t want Diane to see it. Not that she ever asked to see the packages he brought home from Staub’s.
He found his kids sitting in the living room, glumly staring at mindless cartoons on the television.
“Hey, I thought you guys would be bounced halfway to Mars by now. Tired of the trampoline already?”
They turned to him and Ellis replied, “Mom sold it. It was gone by the time we got home from school.”
Pete’s jaw dropped. “Where’s your mother?”
They pointed accusingly toward the kitchen.
He marched in to confront her. Not exactly ready to apologize anymore, was he?
“The kids say you sold the trampoline?”
She didn’t even turn away from the counter where she was cutting vegetables for salad.
“The neighbors cornered me when I left for work. They complained, saying The Association would make us get rid of it,” she told him. “That we could even lose the house over breach of contract.”
He huffed. “You’re such a liar. I left right after you did this morning. Nobody cornered you.”
She turned around now, eyes leveled at him. “I meant they did when I came home at lunch. I had papers to pick up for the bank.”
He squinted at her, trying to keep his voice down. He didn’t want to quarrel. The children were in the next room and would hear. “We could’ve tried to fight them. This is America. It was only a plaything for the kids. I mean, damn, you didn’t waste a beat, did you? It’s Friday. Couldn’t you let them have it for the weekend first? At least? Would that have ruined the lives of any of these jerks around here?”
She shrugged. “I donated it to charity and they picked it up fast. I think children somewhere will be really grateful to get it. Probably some inner-city place where they’re needing help to not be exposed to gangs and drugs…”
“What a load of crap, Diane,” he said, putting up both hands. “You could’ve at least let our kids have it for a couple weeks before you caved to The Association. Or did it even have anything to do with the neighborhood? Did you see Ellis’s and Melody’s faces? You really hurt them.”
She turned back to making the salad, savagely chopping carrots as if they were Peter’s fingers. “No, Pete, you hurt them. By bringing the thing home, letting them think they could have something like it to begin with. They have to learn that people live by rules, if—that is—they intend to live among other people. Maybe the rules don’t always seem fair, but they’re what keeps civilization together. The decent types from the maniacs who live in filth and howl at the moon.”
Peter frowned, knowing she referred to more than the trampoline. She was attacking him personally, and none too subtly. She’d never done this before, crossing the line into territory which might never be erased from their map as a couple. Last night at the restaurant, when everybody around the little birthday party practically died of sphincter lock-up and the manager kicked them out, must have upset Diane more than even he’d realized.
But what she’d done to their son and daughter—to get back at Peter—wasn’t fair.
“Well, here’s one howl at the moon I’ll make quietly enough, the kids won’t hear. You’re an uptight bitch, you know that?” And with that Pete marched out of the kitchen, smiled and shook his head at Ellis and Melody, then hurried upstairs to make sure Mrs. Christian Right hadn’t been in his office doing an exorcism.
Yet it made him feel bad, referring to the mother of his children that way. And what if they’d overheard him call her that? Not that bitch was such a bad word, something they wouldn’t have heard on regular prime time television for Christ’s sake. Or in half the songs on the radio these days. It had been practically rendered into a joke. Bitch. Bee-ahtch. He could have been a lot more explicit. (You mean-spirited, colon-impacted-since-birth, hamster-mommie-who-scarfs-down-her-own-litter cunt.) He couldn’t recall if he’d ever called her a bitch before.
Or anything else derogatory.
(Crossing a line… Hey, she started it.)
Maybe later that night, he’d try to slip into bed, make love to her, do a horizontal apology. Before the gulf begun between them widened into something neither could breach.
««—»»
Peter had the item in his office now. Didn’t come out of Hell for supper. Imagined in his mind Ellis and Melody glowering at Diane for her betrayal of them. Tried to feel vindicated about that. Nope, didn’t happen.
Of course, he couldn’t resist the temptation to explore this scrapbook. Apparently it had belonged to a Detective Zane McFadden, LAPD, Homicide Department. A meticulous man. A man obsessed with duty and failure.
The stills from fatal
crime scenes had a far profounder effect on Pete than the most gory pics from films ever had. In his wildest dreams. Something of magic, of poison. Anyone with sense wouldn’t touch it. Why deliberately wallow in someone else’s curse? That’s what the idiots in really bad horror films did, tempting fate and demons to do their worst. Some called it stupid movie behavior. Others said it was Nature culling the unsuitable from her ranks.
But he still opened the book, at random, caution to the wind, yeah as if it were a dark and stormy night. His very own horror show. Him as the star with dubious survival skills.
Man, don’t touch that ancient tome which calls up the screeching crazy face-eaters from ancient Sumeria!
He landed first on Rosaluna’s portrait, secondly on Elizabeth Short’s. As if the book were telling him: let’s get these out of the way first, since you’ve already acquainted yourself. He didn’t lick either. Been there, done that. He had their images on his skin, Rosaluna between his shoulderblades, baby on his right thigh, Black Dahlia (and her rose tat) on his left thigh.
He didn’t know why he wouldn’t start with the first one, then go in sequence. Nor go to the end and move in reverse, like he always did when sitting down with a newspaper.
Every time he chose a new page, he first set the book on the desk in front of him, closed his eyes, stuck his forefinger down there, and just plucked it open.
What was this going to be? He felt genuine terror yet couldn’t seem to stop himself. It was like when you lose your balance acting like a fool, dancing around at a party with a lampshade or the hostess’s G-string on your head, and you begin windmilling your arms to stay upright. But it’s too late, you moron, you’ve begun falling backwards and you can’t argue with gravity or Jack Daniels or a certain amount of weed. You knew you might do this, because when you get looped, you become a jackass. But the act of getting looped has this attraction, even if the party is filled with gruesome people you’d rather die than spend time with. (The in-laws, for example. Or a faculty party where Jerry Fuckstick stands two inches from your face and won’t stop carping at you about how much he gave up as a promising artist to teach zero-talented teenagers.) And then getting looped becomes a sort of celebration of—as opposed to release from—this grotesque social nightmare. You actually begin to look forward to these events because of the chance, the excuse to bomb your brain waves into whole other dimensions. It transfers from the act of the chemical escape itself into almost a form of love for these repulsive individuals who have brought you to the edge of transcendence and beyond.
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