Twilight's Last Gleaming

by Hertzen Chimera

  Blink.

  The steel door hacked the septic thoughts my mind had consumed in two, the twitching-carcase memories of their passionate intensity fizzled away to a testicle-tingling spasm and a numb sensation at the temples. I gasped at breath; gulped in the sour air; took my fill of the stale taste of this dire chalet. I was holding Jane Templeton Rice out at arms length. Her eyes were riveted to mine; locked on; bleeding perdition. Stephanie stirred in her sleep. I looked round at her and inadvertently blinked.

  A revolting revelation.

  Stephanie’s face; her torso; her entire body from head to toe; was ripped away as if someone had just pulled a dustsheet off her, taking her true nature by surprise. Revealed her for the very first time; bathing in the putrescent stench of greasepaint; clothed in a Pierrot's whites and theatrical ruffle; writhing from one to four in revolting switches of her body posture.

  One becoming four.

  It was she who was Nomadix. A sad pair of Pierrot eyes locked on mine. I blinked the steel door of my mind shut on the solemn gaze.

  Stephanie was rousing before me, unaware of my insight into her true self.

  “Morning, lover.” she rolled up to me drowsily. Noticed the Jane-toy at my feet, “No rest for the wicked, eh?” she sneered arrogantly. Stretched to kiss me on the lips. A lingering greasepaint air preceded the contact. I pulled away, disgusted.

  Stephanie scowled at Jane then back to me.

  “What's going on?” she demanded, “A conspiracy?”

  “Eight Five One Three Seven.” Jane kissed my ear then rose to her feet.

  “What did she say? Where is she going?” Stephanie glowered, eyes like the proverbial sheep leaping the nighttime fence, trying to work out the reason for this alien atmosphere; the hostile waking party. “So, you love the bitch.” she shrugged, “It’s plain to see. I don't mind. In fact, I think it's rather quaint. Romance..” she exhaled dreamily, “..ah, the memory of it.”

  It then dawned on her that this wasn't the answer at all; she was way off the mark.

  “You!” she jabbed a finger at the retreating redhead callgirl, “What have you been telling D.J.?”

  She made a dash for Jane.

  I tried to stop her but cut my hands on the lethal swirl of indignant air that billowed about her. Fell to the floor. Scramble quickly to my feet. Dived between the pair; a weedy lion tamer keeping two unruly wildcats from tearing each other to shreds.

  Stephanie twitched, her skin-tattooed body buckling internally like multidimensional shock absorbers traversing the rocky terrain of warped spacetime.

  “Out of the way, D.J. We wouldn't wanna see you get hurt.” Stephanie warned me coldly.

  “No. Stop this!” I demanded pathetically.

  “You know what the slut is?” Jane barked, “Tell her. Tell her.”

  “Shut up!” I shouted over my shoulder.

  “No, come on, tell me, D.J.” Stephanie’s horseface breathed, a skull exhalation, a long low grinding of bone snapping back with a bitter sob. Her voice slid from the absurdly threatening to the theatrically comical. From killer to clown.

  “NO!” she screamed in her silly voice, her body lurching forward within itself. Her breasts began to bleed.

  “Stephanie!” I shouted

  “That's not a Stephanie!” Jane cried.

  “You're dead, you ginger-souled bitch.” Stephanie retorts, “Move aside, D.J.”

  “No. Stop this now.” what was I doing putting myself between these two warring alien factions?

  “MOVE!” Stephanie shrieked in a nightmare-owl's accent.

  “Come on, slut!” Jane dared Stephanie to reveal herself, bring the Nomadix out into the flesh, “Show yourself to us all.”

  The strain of keeping her Nomadix at bay showed itself in the stretch marks that delineated her pseudo-femininity, a coachload of clumsy school-trip ice skaters churning up her virgin early-morning-icerink surface. Disfiguring her fragile equine beauty.

  “Stop it!” I screamed. “Stop it! Stop this madness! Stop this madness!”

  Stephanie Sylverre’s waiflike image ruptured, fracturing before my very eyes; disintegrating in a spectacular lightshow of roman candles and Catherine wheels. Her beauty's face splits four ways.

  “Come with me if you want to live.” Jane grabbed me with her one good arm, “Come. Now.”

  I shielded my eyes from the brilliant metamorphosis but couldn't move; hypnotised by the ferocious display.

  Why had this monstrosity reduced me?

  Why had it shared with me its secret of flight?

  Why had it hailed me as lover?

  Why hadn't it simply finished off the job it had obviously been sent down to do?

  Why that petty sham with Arrenay and the Drop Out Zone?

  Why that look of sublime pity in her eyes as she exploded from the corporeal to the catastrophic?

  “Come on.” Jane tugged at me again, dragging me towards that part of the wall that opened onto the hallway. Swinging me round and using my momentum to push me right back through the dispersing matter of the chalet wall.

  The tingle of molecular dislocation at the back of my neck; I grabbed hold of Jane's forearm to pull her through.

  “NO!!” she screamed as the forearm I had pulled through with me (just the forearm) imploded with a dull thud. I hit the plush shagpile-carpetted hallway, Jane's face, as the regaining parts of her image break down, an insistent enigma.

  “RUN! RUN!” it mouthed.

  The roar of Stephanie erupting into the malevolent quadruplets shook the very foundations of this sleazy establishment. I was up on my feet and out the front door in an instant. Running. Running. Running. Don't ask me where.

  NINETEEN

  “RITA!” a thick Irish voice shouted; angrily.

  “Rita?” the same voice called; apprehensively.

  An elderly, but not OLD, woman peered through grimy spectacles into her wrecked bedroom. She saw her naked daughter’s lifeless body draped across the mess her bed is in. Mrs Edna Colorado dropped her shopping there in the doorway. Scrambled over the bedroom door that hung at an insane angle from the lock. Staggered to the bed and cradled her daughter in her arms. Cuddled the cold cadaver to her breast., a mournful whimper like the lead cellist of an amateur orchestra who suddenly finds all his fingers have dropped to the floor of the stage and he has to perform his solo so disabled - a rhythmless tuneless buzz-sawing. She surveyed the destruction of her cherished knick-knacks; the twenty years of marriage to her late husband Elvis.

  The room - all the walls, the floor, the ceiling - soaked black. Her child's head fell back. Her sweet mouth fell open.

  “Oh, my Rita. My kitten.” Edna bleated.

  Carroll Maryland gasped alive; her ribs jolting once with terrifying life.

  Mary, Mother and Joseph. her mother watched the resurrected daughter gulping in new life then pulled her to her breast.

  “Rita…” she gazed into the dead eyes, “What have they done to you?”

  “It's Bill Parrish.” Carroll Maryland bleated, “Please don't hurt me anymore, it’s Detective Bill Parrish.”

  “Rita.” Edna searched her daughter's glazed expression, “It’s me, your mother.” She kissed her.

  “Parrish. Detective Sergeant.” Carroll Maryland saluted. “Bill. William. Detective William the Sergeant. That's Parrish. Misterpolicemansergeant. Sir.” she saluted again.

  “Rita.” Edna shook her, “Your mother. Rita.”

  “Clive Idaho told me. It's his fault. Don't hurt me. Hurt Clive Idaho. He's to blame No. No, please, don't do that to me! What have I done?” Carroll Maryland relived her interrogation at the hands of Lily Veyne… “It was Clive Idaho: PLEASE!” Edna slapped her delirious daughter hard across, the face, silencing her.

  “I'm sorry, luv.” Edna apologised for her brutality, I’m sorry.

  “Mum…” Carroll Maryland wailed into Edna's ear.

  “You’re back with us.” Edna held out her reclaimed offspring for inspe
ction, “I

  thought I'd lost you. Thought you’d..” she checked the dramatic outpouring.

  Carroll Maryland looked about the room, fear scarred her eyes, loss creased her brow. Not understanding why she was still alive. Not comprehending the blood sodden walls and the wreckage all about her.

  “What happened?” she asked her tearful mother numbly.

  “You were talking nonsense, luv.”

  “I feel dizzy.”

  “Rita?”

  “The room's spinning, mum. I'm gonna be sick.”

  “I’ll get you a bucket.” Edna rose from the bed.

  “No. It’s okay. I feel okay, now. I’ll be okay.”

  Edna resumed her seat by her daughter. Stroked her hair.

  “Who is Clive Idaho?”

  Carroll Maryland scuttled backwards, nearly tumbling off the bed. She dislodged the alarm clock from the bedside table.

  “What is it, luv??” Edna asked. “Rita…You were saying this name before you came round. Clive Idaho, you were saying – it was his fault. And someone called Parrish.”

  “The parish like a church?” Carroll Maryland asked.

  “I don't know, luv. It was you said the name. How am I to know whether it's parish as in the bloody Church. I thought you were bloody dead, you daft sod.” she dragged her daughter to her bosom once more, “There's been enough bloody death in this family for one lifetime, I think.”

  Carroll Maryland looked about helplessly.

  Edna unwound her daughter’s arms from round her neck and got up off the bed. Turned to her distraught daughter. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’ll get this sorted. No-one messes about with Edna Carolina and gets away with it scott-free. She walked to the bedroom door leaning at its precarious angle and hoiked it free, leaving standing against the wardrobe.

  “You!” she pointed a stern finger at her daughter, “Get dressed.”

  Searching for the telephone amid the mayhem in the lounge, she found a grey coil of plastic wire and followed it under a mound of photo albums and cushions. Snagged her finger on the exposed edge of a shattered picture frame, the sandpaper laser burning a searing gash in the skin just above her index fingernail. She grimaced, pulling the finger to her mouth and sucking on it in case any bits of glass had gotten embedded in it. She spit out the bloody gob. Fiddled inside the trash with her other hand; now really irate. Found something ball-shaped and pulled the telephone handset from its hiding place. It's cord stretching against the weight of the buried telephone.

  Eventually, it popped loose and hung solemnly from its cord. Placing the phone away from the mess, she pressed the receiver down and checked for a dial tone. Dialled - 9. 9. 9. “Police, please.” she said. Huffed and straightened her hair as she waited to be connected; sucked some more on the wounded finger. “Come on.” she ground her back teeth. Popped a cushion onto the couch and sat on the edge of it; patience of a saint.

  “Hello..”

  A pause, as she was retransferred from the Dog Pound to the Police Station proper.

  “Incompetence..”

  An answer.

  “Oh, hello. Yes. I wonder could you help me. I believe you have a Detective by the name of Bill Parrish..”

  Her expression tensed.

  “Of course. You put me through yourselves. That is the Police Station. Harrogate Street. Central Police Station.”

  A pause.

  “Yes. Yes… Go on, then. Good God, this is ridiculous.”

  Edna shook her head at all the destruction about her: that wallpapering had not been done.

  “Aha.” she exclaimed, “At last. This is the Central police?”

  Reply was an affirmative YES.

  “I wonder, could you help me..”

  She took an earful.

  Ground her teeth against the abuse.

  “No. Yes.” she tried to get a word in edgeways, “I understand that.”

  Then, thoroughly irate, screamed down the line, “Yes, this is a bloody EMERGENCY, you insolent klutz. I wouldn't be bloody ringing otherwise, would I? No. I'd very much appreciate it if you'd put me through to a Detective Sergeant Bill Parrish, girl. And less of your bloody lip.” she nodded once, defiantly.

  “And hello to you.” she said after a very lengthy wait, “I’d have thought you'd at least have the common decency to ask who I was before I was put through 'cos, so help me God, I'm gonna give you one hell of a bollocking. Who gave you the fucking authority to break up my fucking homelife with your petty threats and graffiti, you immature bastards. Haven't you anything better to do with your time? No, you listen to me..” she was forced to listen anyway.

  “Carolina. Edna. Yes. You fucking know, why should I..? 134 Highgrove Mews..” The line went dead. She slammed the handset down in its cradle, infuriated at being so rudely dispatched.

  Less than half an hour later, Edna had cleared up the large majority of the mess. Placed things back on shelves where shelves still existed. Replaced pictures onto their respective nails. Tidied the cushions. Thrown bedsheets in the wash. Righted the overturned television, coffee table, chairs.

  Carroll Maryland had been coaxed into some clothes. Jeans, sweatshirt; that sort of regular Coke thing. She had made sure her daughter combed her hair. Had a bit of a wash. She had put on some food for the pair of them - a fry up. Edna was answering a tentative knock at the door. Carroll Maryland was on her feet at her bedroom door, watching avidly, biting her lower lip until it bled.

  “Okay?” Edna enquired. Carroll Maryland nodded a few times, very fast. Edna opened the door as it was being knocked again.

  “Ah. Hello.” a man smiled, “Edna Carolina, I presume.”

  “What of it?” she asked, “Parrish?”

  “I thought I'd play a hunch.” he stepped over the threshold without invitation.

  Edna punched him in the eye.

  “Now we've got the introductions out of the way..” Bill Parrish grinned defensively.

  Edna tried to punch him again.

  Bill caught the fist.

  “Don't push it, eh?” he snarled in a sudden switch from fawn to tiger, pushed her away.

  She was ready for an outburst, “You fucking smart ba..”

  “MAM.” Carroll Maryland screamed from the bedroom door.

  “Sweet Jesus…” Bill was awestruck by the haemic graffiti, “You can explain this ... bloodbath?”

  “Very clever.” Edna sneered at his act of innocence. “Are you Bill the Detective Sergeant, then?”

  Carroll Maryland strolled confidently up to the copper and introduced herself, “I am Carroll Maryland, Clive Idaho said you were our only hope.”

  “Did he now?” he shook her dainty hand.

  “You two have never met.” Edna gasped.

  Bill scratches the back of his head. He took out a pack of Gitanes, “These are horrible cigarettes.” he said, popping one into his mouth. Flipped his Zippo lighter under it and sucked a bright glow to the end of it. Exhaled smog.

  “I gave them up yesterday.”

  “So, Clive Idaho was a boyfriend of yours?” Bill Parrish asked an introspective Carroll Maryland later that evening as he negotiated the steep; and treacherous road that winds up to the location she said Clive Idaho had overheard there was to be a shipment tonight. The rendezvous was to be a pub up on Ashurst Beacon.

  “Rita?”

  “Oh. No.” she snapped out of it. Pulled her thin cardigan tighter around her.

  “Cold?” Bill flicked on the car’s heater.

  “Can't see a thing up ahead.” Bill tried to strike up some semblance of conversation, no matter how stinted or artificial, over all these hills, round there tight bends. In this darkness. A juggernaut came by blaring its horn. Bill flipped the headlights from dip to full beam.

  “There, that's better.” he smiled before launching into a reminiscence, “I used to come up here as a young tearaway. Yes, me and my mates. We all had these big Harleys. He glanced over at her dumb-looking face, Harley Davidson
s.”

  She flicked her eyebrows at him, like she gave a fuck.

  “Doesn’t it frighten you, this undercover stuff?” Carroll Maryland suddenly sparked up.

  “What?”

  “This rushing to the front line? into the unknown?”

  “Some fool rattled your cage, huh?” Bill was amazed she had said anything, “Well, yes, it would normally worry me, the unknown. Everyone would like to know what they are up against. But if what you said about even Policemen being involved in the cover-up turns out to be the truth, it'll all be worth the dread. Ha, imagine it, busting a major psychedelic drug ring and putting a load of bent coppers behind bars all in the one night of surveillance. Bill Parrish grinned. The element of surprise. Honey, I'm weak at the knees with excitement.”

  Carroll Maryland shook her head, snorting at his cockiness, “They're gonna deserve everything that's coming to them after what the sick fucks did to my Evanda.” each word was distilled bitterness, each separate syllable almost-artificially over laden with malice.

  “We shouldn't see much trouble..” Bill brought out a huge silver revolver from his shoulder holster, “Not with Nellie to protect us.” He beamed at the monstrous weapon.

  “Nellie?” Carroll Maryland wondered at the odd name.