CHAMBERS NATIONAL BANK
The name was branded across both doors in the same stylized pattern embossed on the monthly bills he had received. He ran his fingertips across the lettering. While Mama had tried to mentally prepare him for this, he didn’t know how one could ever really be prepared for what was about to happen.
This is just a smokescreen. She smiled that gentle smile, put her warm brown hand over his. He would have believed anything she told him. Him and his like are just takin advantage of the chaos. They serve other gods. Oh, they might worship money but you can’t serve money. So I feel it’s only fair I let you borrow a couple of my gods: Papa Legba and Baron La Croix. They’ll need off’rins like any self-respectin deity. And, of course, you don’t gotta worship em, you just gotta believe in em.
Myron had offered the remainder of the hotdog to Papa Legba. The only thing he had left was the money. He pulled the still damp bills from his pockets and placed them in front of the door. He heard a piercing scream and repetitive thump.
“For you, Baron La Croix.”
He looked at the bills lying on the floor, expecting them to disappear or something. They didn’t. But the blood did. One minute it was there and the next minute the hundred dollar bills looked like they had come fresh from the treasury. Myron picked them up and put them back into his pockets. He stood up and tried the knob on the right. The door wouldn’t budge. Already knowing the outcome, he tried the door on his left.
Papa Legba opens doors.
What if these weren’t the doors he was supposed to open? Would Papa only do something once? Or would he open many doors if Myron asked him to? Better play it safe.
Myron thought he could handle these himself. He went back down the hall about halfway until he came to an emergency station, complete with a fire hose and an ax. He smashed out the glass and grabbed the ax. He held it with both hands, felt its heft, the smooth wood against his palms. Wasting no more time, he stalked to the locked office doors and began smashing at them. All he had to do was bust them a couple of times at the latches and the doors swung open.
8.
As he walked through the doors, another lobby surrounded him. Much like the one on the first floor, only on a smaller scale. A woman lay bound to the receptionist’s desk. Her mouth was gagged with dark cloth. She stared crazy eyed at Myron as she struggled against the ropes. Two very large and very black dogs flanked either side of the desk. They growled at Myron. Lean muscles rippled through their haunches.
He heard a man’s gruff voice say, “Stay.” Then he felt something smack against his head and everything went a little darker than it already was.
9.
It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the dusky room. His wrists were tied together over his head. He was suspended from the ceiling, his legs bound at the ankles. The room was a very spacious office, fit for the bank president.
The shelves were in disarray, many of them pulled down altogether. A behemoth desk lay toppled on its side. He hung in front of a row of windows. A cold, damp breeze blew in through the ones that had been shattered.
Four people stood watching him from the other side of the room, slightly to the left of the devastated desk. Two younger men who looked eager and willing to begin their climb up the corporate ladder, a slim blond woman and a stocky, gray-haired man holding a severed lower leg around the ankle.
“I’m looking for Robert Chambers.”
The older man barked at him, “Shut the fuck up!” The two goonish men smirked.
Was this Robert Chambers, the bank president? It almost had to be. If so, this was the man responsible for foreclosing on his home. This man was partly responsible for the swirling chaos and panic raging through the streets outside.
“Are you Robert Chambers?”
“I told you to shut the fuck up!” He turned to the goon on his right. “I thought we had him out of the way but I guess we forgot to do something about that mouth.”
“If you’re Robert Chambers, I have a message for you from Patrice Hodap…”
In his right hand, he held a stack of papers. He brandished them at Myron.
“I don’t know who the fuck that is!”
“You know you’re a murderer.”
The man stomped up and down like a child throwing a tantrum. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck you! I don’t have to listen to you or any other piece of trash from the street.”
“I ain’t from the street, Mr. Chambers. I’m from a place even farther below.”
“I don’t care where the fuck you come from.” Chambers took a few steps toward him. “I’ll cut you loose and you can go back to eating rats in the sewer with that nigger bitch. You have no part in this.”
“I’m afraid I do.” Myron spit at Chambers, saliva spraying the front of his suit.
Chambers turned his back on Myron and began walking toward the other side of the room.
“Steiner!” Chambers shouted. One of the younger men snapped to attention. “Take these certificates and feed them to this stupid fuck.”
“But what if he tries to bite me, sir?”
Chambers drew back the lower leg and smacked Steiner on the shoulder. “You want to join him?”
Steiner took the stock certificates and approached Myron. He struggled against his bonds. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of screaming. He made eye contact with Steiner.
“Listen to me,” Steiner said. “I’m going to shove these into your mouth and if you make one attempt to bite me you’re going out the window. Understand?”
Myron shook his head.
“He’s going to bite me! I know it! I can see it in his eyes!”
“If he bites you, we’ll break out his teeth and shove them up his prick.”
“Open up,” Steiner said.
Myron opened his mouth. As Steiner crumpled up the first certificate and pressed it against Myron’s lips, Myron gnashed his teeth. Steiner drew back his fist and punched him in the mouth. Myron felt teeth shatter. Steiner shook his hand with pain, dropping the certificate to the floor. It was probably the first time he’d ever hit anyone.
“Lora! Front and center,” Chambers barked.
The blond woman approached Chambers. The other man stood to his left, beside a thick-looking door. Myron wondered if it was some kind of safe. It looked like it was made from wood but it could have been lined with steel, for all Myron knew.
Steiner took the first certificate and shoved it into Myron’s mouth. Myron gagged and spit the crumpled certificate and some blood back into Steiner’s face.
“Little fucker,” Steiner said. He bent down and removed a very expensive brown leather shoe.
From the other side of the office, Chambers said, “I need servicing.”
He unzipped his trousers and let them drop to the floor. His erection was enormous.
“No,” Lora said.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?”
“I won’t do it.”
“Think about what you’re saying. Out there,” he gestured to the windows with the leg, “people are going out of their heads because they’ve lost everything they had. Now I’m offering you whatever it takes to get you down on your knees. How much?”
Steiner balled up another certificate and shoved it into Myron’s mouth. This time he took his shoe and crammed the paper to the back of Myron’s throat. Myron gagged but the shoe forced his gorge back down and then he had to fight to swallow the paper so he wouldn’t choke on it. The aged paper worked its way down his throat. He coughed. Steiner had another certificate ready, shoving it in. It seemed like he’d hit some sort of groove. Myron tasted the old water flavor of the paper, blood, bile, street grime and shoe polish.
“This much?” Chambers produced a stack of bills from the inside pocket of his blazer. He peeled off a couple and threw them in Lora’s face.
“I won’t.”
“This much?” He threw a couple more bills at her.
“This much?” He ground a wad into her fac
e.
Myron wondered why she stood there and took this. Why didn’t she turn and run? Why hadn’t she run a while ago when Chambers had undoubtedly blown some kind of gasket? Maybe this wasn’t abnormal. Maybe he always acted like this.
He dropped the entire stack on the floor in front of her.
“Still no?”
“Never.”
“Fuck it. Money’s worthless anyway.”
Chambers kicked the stack away and it exploded in a greenish flutter. He sat the severed leg onto the floor. He ripped off his jacket and his shirt, finished stripping off his pants, standing stocky and naked. Through Myron’s watery eyes, he looked like a predatory animal. Chambers picked the leg back up.
“Todd!”
“Yes, sir!” the remaining man bellowed.
“Shit on this stack of money.”
“Yes, sir!”
Todd came out of his stoic stupor to walk over, drop his pants, and squat over the stack of loose bills.
“I’ll just take what I want,” Chambers said.
Myron choked down another certificate and coughed, “Lora!”
The woman turned to him as though she hadn’t even realized there was anyone else in the room until now.
“Run!”
“I can’t. The dogs.” She stood there whimpering, looking down at Todd and the stack of money with disgust, bringing her arms instinctively over her chest.
Was she just hoping the madness would suddenly end?
Chambers snapped out with the leg and caught her on the side of the head with a meaty thunk. Lora fell to her right, bloody hair sticking to her face. Myron didn’t know if the blood came from her or the leg.
He couldn’t watch this. He had to do something. He pulled his knees up to his chest and savagely kicked out at Steiner as he reached toward him with another certificate. He planted the kick squarely in Steiner’s chest. He staggered backward, caught himself, and was on Myron in a second, catching him across the face with the hard sole of his shoe. Myron went dizzy with the bolt of pain and the violent swinging of the rope. He wondered what he was suspended from. How easy it would be to break.
He heard fabric rip and Lora scream.
The office smelled like shit and vomit and blood. And beneath it all, the smell of old money and endless comfort.
He swung around, staring out over the city through the busted window and now back into the office. His eyes quickly followed the twisting rope to a vent in the ceiling. Steiner’s shoe met his nose this time. He heard it pop and saw flashes of purple. Heard Lora savagely slapping at Chambers, saying, “No, no, no.” Chambers laughing—lecherous and guttural. Myron threw himself toward the open window.
“Crazy fucker’s trying to go out!” Steiner shouted. He sounded terrified or ecstatic.
Myron thought maybe the vent gave a little bit. He timed his next push for when Steiner came at him with the shoe again. It met him on the ear with a buzzing roar and he threw himself out the window, felt the air kiss his sweaty skin, heard a crumbling and a clanking and started his descent.
On the way down, he tried to think about nothing at all.
10.
He hit the cement and everything fractured and exploded before it imploded upon itself. He felt twisted up and inside out but surprisingly whole. He opened his eyes to stare up at a black sky streaked with lightning and pissing down rain.
If you ask the Baron to cause the death of another, you be prepared to pay. But just know—he is the master of death and it’s only he can take you there. So you make sure to pray for him to keep your heart beating and leave him out of that other man’s business. That other man’s for human hands. You and me and everyone else.
Myron took a breath of the soggy air and felt his heart pound into life.
How many times would he be able to defy death?
He stood up, expecting to see a crowd of gawkers.
He didn’t.
11.
What he saw—what he could see—was much worse. This was the world of his vision. This was the world Mama Hodap had shown him. This was not the world he had left behind. Only maybe it was that world, perverted and decayed.
This was still Wall Street. The buildings were still there but they were in shambles, crumbling ruins. Every building except for the Chambers Building. If anything, it was even taller than before and now it looked more like a tower than a building. For a moment, Myron thought it was glowing. Several torches were stood up along the side of the road, almost like primitive streetlamps, their flames guttering against the rain. Naked corpses were stacked on the sidewalks to either side of the road. Men, women, children, animals. All stripped and thrown there like garbage, in various states of decay. Now was not the time to mourn them. He had other things to do. He had a purpose and now that purpose was renewed. Mama Hodap had felt it when she had touched him. She had said he was the one. She had said he had been brought to her. He had been chosen. He had not found them. They had found him. For the first time since entering the sewers, he was able to understand what she meant.
He didn’t put himself together and stand up after falling forty-three floors for nothing.
He tried to shake the vision from his head. It didn’t do any good. It was no longer just a vision. It was very real, slouching in front of him. The torches still burned. The bodies were still there. The rain continued to pour. Lightning continued to flash. He was in the belly of chaos. He was in the middle of Wall Street, adjusted to fit this savage world.
He turned toward the Chambers building.
This time he was going to enter through the front door.
He had encountered Chambers. He was still alive. He still had his dignity. He was still an under man, still a resident down there at the bottom of the world. But he was not unequal. He knew that now.
As he drew closer to the building he saw that it wasn’t made of brick and concrete like most buildings. Not anymore. Bones—gray, white, and black—made up the intricate framework. It was covered in a luminous membrane. The glowing, oozing tower contrasted against the black sky. He reached out to grab what may have been a handle or maybe just a jaw bone when the door opened to receive him.
He passed through it into the cramped, humid lobby.
12.
The door shut behind him and Myron knew he wouldn’t be going back out that way even if he wanted to. He turned to survey the lobby area. It was arranged much the same as the old lobby area. The receptionist’s desk was made up of various bones. These bones, enmeshed with the membrane and bone meal, made up the interior walls, as well. They made him think of fossils covered in semen. The membrane coated everything with that glow. It had to be glowing. He didn’t see any other sources of light. The floor was some kind of black dirt or more bone meal. Maybe the ashes of the dead.
In front of him, the floor was moving, opening up.
He stood rooted in place, staring at the disturbance.
A pair of little hands reached up through the ashy floor, followed by a mostly familiar face.
Joanie.
He breathed the name aloud. “Joanie.”
This was Joanie after death. Gray and rotten but still mostly intact. She hadn’t really been dead very long. He reached out to help pull her from the ground. He took her hand and pulled gently. He could feel the bone separating from the joint and shuddered with the thought of the arm coming off in his hand. He released her.
“Joanie,” he said again.
“Daddy.” Her vocal cords didn’t work very well. The muscles of her mouth were mostly rotten. Dirt and insects filled her throat. It didn’t sound like Joanie at all.
She pulled herself the rest of the way out. Black dirt caked her deteriorated clothes. He wanted to hug her but fought the urge. What good would it do? This wasn’t his Joanie. He knew that. It would be impossible for his Joanie to be here. He imagined hugging her and having her fall to pieces in his arms just like she had died under his watch. He fought the crippling wave of grief and guilt threateni
ng to pull him down.
“Follow me,” Joanie said.
She turned to his left, walking with a quick, jerking shamble. She disappeared through a man-size opening shaped like a vagina. He followed her, pushing the thickly dripping membrane aside, the thick lips of the vagina painting him in the substance.
Once through the opening, he found himself in a claustrophobic chamber even more sickeningly humid than the lobby. It breathed around him. Slowly. A sleep breath.
“Joanie?”
“Up here, Daddy!”
He looked up. A deep shaft ascended up through the building. Perhaps this was the elevator at one point. It didn’t make any sense. The shaft was lined with what looked like circular bones, monstrous ribcages. He grabbed the first rung and began climbing.
His new body felt strong and powerful. Up to the task or merely equipped to take him to some awful end.
He knew where he was going.
All the way to the top.
Somewhere along the way, he lost sight of Joanie. But he figured he didn’t lose sight of her. She was probably never there in the first place.
He climbed the rungs smoothly and as quickly as he could.
The shaft continued to ooze and breathe around him.
On the way, he thought about the path that had brought him here.
13.
Shortly after the death of his family, Myron turned his back on the homeless shelters and the free government care that went along with them. As far as he was concerned, the only thing they had succeeded in doing was killing Melinda and Joanie. In the shelters and on the streets, he had heard whisperings of all kinds of things. It wouldn’t do to go out looking for a job because a storm was brewing and the factories weren’t hiring anyone and would probably be shutting down shortly. You could move out west but work was just as scarce out there and they paid slave wages for brutal days of backbreaking labor. None of that mattered to Myron. With his family gone, he didn’t have anyone to work for anyway.
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