by Harvey Click
“Last time I called it was three a.m., and you still weren’t home,” he said. “Apparently you had to nurse his sores all night long.”
Same old actor playing the same old scene over and over, but something more than the tired script was bothering me. I felt intensely ill and wondered if I was dying, back there in the present. I’d lost thirty pounds and was exhausted—maybe I was having a heart attack or a stroke.
“It’s hard work playing doctor,” the stranger said. “After a while, all those injections probably made you sore between the legs.”
“Jane, don’t get in your car!” I tried to shout, but the stranger’s lips were frozen in a hard grin, thinking he was going to win this argument.
“Jane, I love you,” I tried to shout, but the sickness was worse and I knew I needed to return. My body seemed so far away, somewhere three years in the future and possibly dying. I tried to feel the points of the pentagram talisman in my right hand, but I couldn’t. The talisman seemed to be gone and my body as well.
I thought I heard the Monk speaking. I thought I heard him say, “Maybe you get lost in the wind,” but maybe I imagined it.
Jane was wiping her face, but the stranger didn’t notice her tears. “You want to play doctor, then I will too,” he said.
Blustery wind whistling outside, and I was terrified it would suck me out through the window and I’d be lost in the cold gray forever. I tried to cling to the airy substance of my being, but I was a nothing that weighed less than an atom struggling against the vast stormy chaos of time.
“You had a nice time last night, but don’t expect it twice in a row,” the stranger said.
I tried to shout, but I had no voice, just the sharp shriek of cold time reaching in through frozen windows and the terror of the endless universe outside. At last I sensed the points of the pentagram pressing into my palm sometime far away, and I tumbled toward them with a silent scream.
This time when I awoke I didn’t vomit. I coughed instead, a deep liquid cough that rattled my lungs and brought bloody phlegm to my mouth. I felt sicker and weaker than I’ve ever felt. My lungs, my limbs, everything felt sick and achy, and my eyes were dim and out of focus.
I was no longer lying on the sofa. I was sitting in a chair—the Monk’s chair. Somebody came into the room and handed me a glass of whiskey. Somebody who looked very familiar but also unfamiliar.
I was looking at myself.
“Here, you better drink this,” he said. “You gonna feel pretty sick for a while.”
“What the fuck?” I said, and my voice sounded old and phlegmy.
The Monk grinned and licked his teeth, but this time they weren’t long and brown, they were white and even. My teeth.
“I told you I learn from the best,” he said. “Smart old man called Christian Rosenkreuz. You teach history, maybe you remember he lived in the fifteenth century and started the Rosicrucians. Yes, Mr. Hunter, I was born more than five hundred years ago, but my good old teacher teach me good. He teach me whenever I get old, I show some young student how to leave his body so I can take it. Young people always so stupid, but their bodies feel nice to walk around in.”
He plucked the talisman from my gnarled old hand and put it around his neck. “My good teacher give me this,” he said, “so I keep it always. I let you sit for an hour to get over your sick spell, then I drive you to your apartment.”
“My apartment?” I said. I was still unable to comprehend any of this.
“Yes, the apartment where you found me is yours now. In the bedroom closet you find a tin can with a little money. Not much, but there should be some Social Security checks at the post office when you feel good enough to go get them.”
“I’m not leaving this house,” I said.
“Then I have to call the cops to remove you. I don’t want some sick old man living here, stinking up my house.”
***
I live in the Monk’s ratty little apartment now and forge his signature on his meager Social Security checks to pay the rent. His name is Moses Smith, or at least that’s the name of the body he stole before he stole mine. It’s my name now.
For more than a week I was too ill to leave the apartment except to buy groceries. Imagine suddenly finding yourself in someone else’s body, an old and feeble carcass with aching teeth and phlegmy lungs. Imagine running someone else’s tongue over someone else’s diseased gums and tasting someone else’s sour saliva. Imagine voiding the contents of somebody else’s geriatric bowels. You’d feel ill too.
As soon as I felt well enough, I spent some of the Monk’s scarce money on a taxi ride out of town to the place where I once lived, and I found a for-sale sign in front of my house. His house. I spoke to the realtor and learned that Sam Hunter had left the state and was selling the property through an attorney. Where he’s living the realtor wouldn’t say, and what good would it do me to find him anyway? In this case I’m afraid possession is one hundred percent of the law.
For a while I considered running an ad for a student interested in time travel, and I even thought of calling my old friend Joe Laredo and asking if he wanted to resume his lessons, but I didn’t. I’m a rat who caused the death of the woman I loved, but I’m not a body snatcher. Besides, even if I wanted to, I don’t have the old man’s powers, only his stinking body.
So I walk time. Day after day and night after night I lie on the Monk’s filthy sofa and travel back there. At first I wasn’t able to do it without his help, but I soon learned how to make the leap on my own. I think it’s easier now because my soul doesn’t feel at home in this disgusting body and is more than happy to leave.
The difficult part is returning. In addition to stealing my body, my money, my house, and everything else I had, the Monk took back his talisman, and without it I sometimes have great difficulty finding my way back to a body that my soul doesn’t consider home. I’ve tried crafting my own talismans shaped like his, but I discovered by accident the most effective one is the lid of a tuna fish can. When I’m lost in space-time, my terrible panic causes the old body back there on the sofa to squeeze the jagged lid so hard that the blood on my hand draws me back. Apparently my soul has a bloodhound’s nose for the smell of blood.
And I’ve learned there are terrible places for time travelers to get lost. There are places between the folds of space-time that weave in and out of our world without really touching it, and you don’t want to get lost in those neverlands. There thirsty spirits attach themselves to you like leeches, moaning with malice and need. I don’t know if they’re demons or ghosts or some sort of extra-terrestrial beings, but I know they’re wholly evil, driven by greed and hunger for the life-force of my spirit. More than once I’ve gotten lost among them, and only the blood drawn by a jagged tin can lid has guided me back.
But soldier on I must. Only by saving Jane Shelley’s life can I save my own. If she had not died, that fool Sam Hunter would never have gone to see the Monk, and so the Monk would have needed to find a different sucker or else he would have sat here dying in this little apartment as I do now. These old lungs become more phlegm-filled every day, and I don’t know how much longer they’ll last.
So day and night I walk time, striving to create a different past and a different present. And I’m making some small progress. Sometimes I’m able to change one or two words spewing from the mouth of that hateful fool I once was, but I’m never able to make him say the words I want him to say, only nonsense words half-thought in the back of my mind. When he’d usually say, “I guess your sick friend needs a lot of nursing,” one time I was able to make him say, “I guess your sick friend needs a lot of time travel.” And when he’d usually say, “I’m sick of being your personal gynecologist,” one time I was able to make him say, “I’m sick of being your killer.”
But they’re never the words I want to make him say, and they never save her life. The words that drive her to her grave remain the same, no matter how hard I struggle to change them. So I walk time again an
d again, gravity folding in on itself like a balloon collapsing, old Burgundy wine and Cavendish smoke and Jane wiping tears from her cheeks while a delicate blue vein in her forehead throbs with blood that will soon spill down her broken face.
The drunken fool watches her scrape her windshield, cold snowy wind slapping his face as he stares out the front door. His brain feels weak now, surprised and disappointed that she’s leaving, and I try desperately to make him run out to her and say just one nice word to bring her back. But the night wind is sharp with frozen time, and his lips feel numb, and I can’t move them.
Jane finishes scraping her windshield and is getting in her car when the stranger’s lips finally move. I fight with his brain, but it belongs to someone else and won’t obey me.
“I don’t care if I ever see you again!” he yells.
Cathedrals of Blood
Carmina and I ride through neon-lit streets in the black night rain. Dimitri glides the Mercedes almost soundlessly past expensive clubs. Though the doormen would recognize us, we are not well known. We protect our privacy. We allow no one to lift our veil. That’s our first rule.
Streetlights and neon flit across Carmina’s face, painting her high cheekbones and hollow cheeks blue, orange and red. She’s a beauty, incomparable, with long smooth black hair, impenetrable black eyes, and a sad, downturned mouth. You would guess her to be in her mid-thirties, though on closer look you might not be so sure. Something in her eyes speaks of measureless years, the sadness of time. But you’d be drawn to her, and you wouldn’t stop to consider the cost. You’d give your soul for an hour with her.
“The moon’s talking loudly tonight,” she says. “It’s telling me about a secret river in Africa where dead children come to bathe. I can see them frolicking on the grassy banks, and they’re not at all afraid of the crocodiles.”
She’s going mad. I noticed the first signs many months ago. At first her senseless ravings and bizarre behavior were rare, but now they’re frequent and more severe. Last night she danced naked in a vacant lot at midnight while street thugs gathered round to leer, and Dimitri and I had to drag her kicking and screaming back to the car. Two nights ago she bit the head off a rat and devoured its body, fur and all.
Though her face is turned away from me now, I imagine the rivulets running down the car window casting shadows on her cheeks like tears of darkness. But the tears are mine, not hers. I think I understand her madness, but I don’t know how to help her. I think it’s caused by the immense weight of all these years piling upon her like shovelfuls of dirt filling a grave. For my own safety I should leave her, but that’s impossible. She’s my heart and my world.
Rainy nights are so much alike, and this one takes me back to other rainy nights in other places. I remember when we glided about in a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow in a different city, a different country, a different age. The past is too long and too well-thumbed. I don’t want to turn those pages again, not tonight. The future is unthinkable. One must think only of now, this moment, if one is not able to give up thinking altogether.
Carmina orders Dimitri to turn. She’s not in the mood for an expensive club tonight, nor am I. Now we plunge through meaner, dirtier streets, and it’s easier not to remember. Junkies, indifferent to the rain, watch us with blank eyes. We return their blankness.
A young hooker stares at the Mercedes. She’s emaciated with a narrow, joyless face, but when she sees our car her eyes momentarily come alive with hope for a rich john. She shivers beneath a transparent raincoat, and I wonder if she’s catching flu or needing junk or is merely cold. In some vague and useless way I wish I could protect her from the all the misery out there, but already Carmina has noticed a young man on the other side of the street and she tells Dimitri to pull over.
The Mercedes stops and a horn blares angrily behind us. Carmina gets out, opens her umbrella, and crosses the street to him. He’s maybe nineteen, with a black leather motorcycle jacket and thick black hair greased back. He strikes a cocky pose, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, but I can tell he’s already baited and hooked. In less than a minute he follows her to the car. He gives me a dirty look when she opens the door, but she tells him to pay no attention to me.
He climbs in, dripping wet and smelling of cheap hair oil. Carmina climbs in after him, trapping him between us, and the car pulls quietly away. Already her hands are all over the boy, caressing his face, unbuttoning his shirt, combing her slender fingers through his oily hair.
His wet jacket keeps rubbing against me, and I push him away. Carmina seems to be mustering up some real excitement, almost like a schoolgirl, and it grates on my nerves. I want her to wait till we’re safe at home, in the house we rent out of town.
For some reason she tries speaking Spanish with him. He doesn’t understand a word of it, though the language flows like honey in her mouth. I haven’t heard her speak it for a long while, and it stirs memories. Now she has his jeans undone and is playing with his cock, which is already swollen with the alacrity of youth. His greasy hair rubs against my shoulder, and I shove him roughly away. I’m hungry and irritable, beginning to feel sick.
I think of Spain, the labyrinth of Toledo with mysterious doorways in walls of stone, the dark narrow streets of Madrid filled with dark-haired beauties and gypsy organ grinders, a woman’s face in the shadows of a doorway. I recall something my old friend Salvador Dali once said: “Human beings are cathedrals of blood.” The dome, the nave, the transepts, I think, staring out the window. The sacristy of the heart.
But I am a cathedral of dust.
Carmina sucks his cock greedily. It’s engorged with blood, and I wonder how she can restrain herself. He moans and fumbles with the buttons of her dress. Finally he frees her breasts and paws at her nipples. They refuse to swell—but they soon will, stupid boy! My hunger has turned to sickness. My hands shake, and I curse her for whetting my appetite like this. She should wait till we’re out of the city.
At last she strikes, biting clear through his penis, severing it at the base. The stupid boy howls and lunges with all his strength, but I have a hold of his shoulders. I let him struggle for a moment, enjoying his outrage. I almost envy him his horror. To feel such passion again!
She is breaking our second rule, the rule of discretion. Dimitri makes a disapproving sound, wanting to complain that somebody may see us, but he says nothing. He’s paid well, but he’s not paid to offer opinions. With my teeth I tear into the side of the boy’s neck and drink deep from the fountain while Carmina sucks him dry from the other end.
Then, peace. The boy’s body is slumped on the floor. The car drifts soundlessly, and I gaze dreamily at the rainy darkness. We are well out of the city now, and the trees are gnarled, their leaves sagging and dripping in the gloom. Carmina quietly hums an old song that I dimly recollect, though I can’t recall the words.
I look at her blood-covered lips wearing a faint smile. Now her nipples are swollen. I take her dress the rest of the way off and make love to her on the gently rocking seat. I lick the blood from her face and kiss her ageless eyes over and over.
***
When we arrive home, Carmina examines the boy and notices signs of reanimation—greenish pus is beginning to edge his wounds and there are feeble hints of breath. It’s rare for this to happen, but even when the Affliction gets such a good hold on a carcass, few come back. How many souls want to return to this cursed half-life?
This one is trying. I grasp his upper arm and feel his muscles twitching faintly. I go to the house and return with my sword, but Carmina stops me. She’s kneeling on the car floor and cradling his head in her arms.
“Let’s let him come back,” she says.
I stare at her with dismay. Behead the bastard and let Dimitri bury the remains. That’s always been our policy. I point out that he’s a brainless kid, that he’ll cause trouble. We argue fiercely, but Carmina slips into another fit of madness. She raves that the boy is the king of some imaginary place called Zembla, and
she insists she was married to him in a past life.
She doesn’t let go of the boy’s head for a moment while she rants, and she scarcely tears her eyes away from him to look at me. Dimitri waits in the driver’s seat, the engine still running.
“I’m going to keep him,” she says.
Morning is coming and there’s no time left to argue. With Dimitri’s help I carry the boy into Carmina’s room, where we place him, wet with rain and blood, on her wide brass bed. His hands are twitching now, and a soft moan escapes his lips.
His eyelids suddenly snap open, but the eyes are still dead and sightless. Though it’s rare that any come back, I know perfectly well why some do and some don’t, and I know only the damned return.
Carmina leans over the bed, strokes his greasy forehead, and softly sings a Spanish lullaby. With her dress unbuttoned and her bare breasts flickering white in the candlelight, she looks like an unholy Madonna comforting the damned.
***
The boy has been with us for three nights. His wounds are nearly healed. His penis has regenerated to the size of a boy’s, but Carmina, more dedicated than a nun, nurses it nightly with her mouth, and soon it will be ready to roar. He’s delirious most of the time, but tonight he was alert enough to ask the same questions over and over: “Where da fuck am I? Whadda fuck happened? Whadda fuck dja do to me?”
Or similar edifying discourse. Sometimes he raves about flames and voices. He’s angry and frightened, but he has his moments of calm. Those are the worst, because then the malevolence in his eyes is raw and undisguised.
It does no good to warn Carmina. She’s too far gone in madness to be bothered by his evil eyes. It does no good to tell her anything, in fact, so we’ve scarcely talked. We hunt quickly now and bring our donor home so all three of us can feed. For a convalescent, the boy has an impressive appetite. Then for the rest of the night Carmina fusses over him, kissing his sweaty body and playing with his little cock.