Zanesville: A Novel

by Kris Saknussemm

  THERE’S NOTHING SO QUAINT AS A FUTURE BEYOND YOUR WILDEST IMAGINATION.

  —Stinky Wiggler

  Instantly the billboard vanished—but he saw images of a frontier town like the one on the Marshal’s wall. It was covered in bunting and he heard a marching band. He didn’t know what the images meant, but they encouraged him. And he needed that. It was a long way to go and he didn’t know if the Marshal had any money. Maybe they’d have to rob their way to South Dakota.

  They hit a snag in Nellis. Following Bigfoot, the air force had consolidated their secret activities deeper in the old nuclear testing site to the north, or moved operations to atolls in Micronesia, turning Nellis Air Force Base and the infamous Area 51, like many of the notorious twentieth-century facilities such as Dulce, New Mexico, into Vitessa theme parks. Unfortunately, none of these parks had done well commercially. Once the official barricades had come down no one believed that what they were seeing was real, which of course it wasn’t. The military removed the intrigue along with the classified equipment. The result was that Nellis had become a slum district.

  They circled a ghetto of defunct satellite dishes stitched together with laundry and rope ladders and covered in Spanish and Arabic graffiti. Vitessa had reopened the checkpoint but it was still possible to cut through the park, and that’s what the Marshal had in mind. Amid rattlesnake weed barracks and quivering Cyclone fences, the gel-suited bodies of dead aliens lay, costumes so cheaply made they looked like big condoms. A row of F-111s planted nose-down outlined Majestic Avenue, which wound them to a worn g-force ride clanking in the breeze. An Apache jumping spider basked on the hood of a dead Corvette.

  They could see shrouded nomads vanishing between corrugated Quonset huts. Back behind them, maxicopters and Raptors surveyed the smoldering megaplex in greater numbers, but their emphasis was on what remained of the luxurious mountainside estates and waterfront high-rises, leaving the riffraff to slug it out to the northeast. Automatic weapon fire flashed in the greasewood.

  “Feels like cold turkey in Tijuana on the Day of the Dead.” The Marshal grinned. “But don’t you worry . . . we’ll get through.”

  Clearfather was glad of his company. Particularly when the dune buggies roared up over the rise. One was painted to look like a tarantula and mounted with a Gatlinger. Another was armored with spikes like a horned lizard and equipped with a harpoon gun, while the third was dressed up in the colors of a king snake and armed with a flamethrower. The Indian lugged up an asphalt service road with the Marshal prepared to turn and open fire, but when they cleared the crest they saw a series of mounds stretching out over a dry lake. Out in the middle leaned one of the giant celebrity robot’s heads.

  “That’s John Travolta!” the Marshal hollered.

  “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter—what’s that other thing? Shit—it’s a Flying Haggis!”

  With the dune buggies closing, the Marshal had no choice but to race for the lopped-off head of John Travolta, which appeared to have one of the Flying Haggis Fleet of small promotional blimps floating above it. The rig with the Gatlinger edged up closer, teasing them with bullet bursts. Clearfather turned to aim the H&K when his wig blew off. It hit the harpooner in the face and sent his cannon-launched spear through the chest of the tarantula buggy driver, who rolled and took out the flamethrower-mounted vehicle in a fireball of cage and torsion bar.

  “Nice work!” yelled the Marshall.

  They reached John Travolta’s head, jolting to a halt between the mounds. From the ear of the colossus ran an anchor line up to the Haggis. A shot rang out from the mangled pile of dune buggies.

  “We’re not going to get out of this without a fight!” whispered the Marshal. “I’m going to go around and try to get behind them. You stay here. The shotgun will keep ’em honest if they try to rush you.”

  “Hey there!” a female voice called. “Doan shooot!”

  “What was that?” hissed Clearfather.

  “It came from up there!” The Marshal pointed. “Somebody’s on the Haggis.”

  “I wonder if it would still fly?” Clearfather asked.

  “I’m beginnin’ to hope so, son. Look!”

  More dune buggies were coming up over the hill now, ATCs with warpainted riders and a big green Hummer covered in cattle skulls and space alien masks—waving a Mickey Mouse flag.

  “We’ve got to board the Haggis!” cried the Marshal. “They’re flying the Mickey!”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They’re cannibals—they’ll eat our brains!”

  The Marshal scrambled back to the Indian and wrenched out of the saddlebags what he thought they could carry. Then he flipped a toggle switch under the seat and directed Clearfather to start climbing the rope.

  “Hey there—whatjew doin’?” the female voice called again.

  Clearfather ripped off the milkmaid costume. A bullet whistled past as he jerked himself up the braided nylon. Out of the Hummer came an enormous goonda in a Kevlar body diaper, a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt, and a welder’s helmet, carrying a bazooka. He was followed by a towering blond transsexual in a fur bikini with a harlequin Great Dane. Clearfather threw himself over the deck of the Haggis as the giant blonde produced a bullhorn.

  “This is our turf, darlings!”

  “We’re just passing through!” yelled the Marshal as a bullet smoked the mound between him and the Hummer.

  “The only thing you’re going to pass through is my digestive system!” the blonde exclaimed, and the savages howled with laughter. Some wore only jockstraps or G-strings and combat boots—their skin covered in melanomas and tattoos. Others were fully robed or decked out in theme-park castoffs. Atop their pickup trucks and armored cars were the rotted mascot heads of South Park characters and the Powerpuff Girls confined by S&M masks.

  Clearfather tried to quiet his mind, listening for the voices. He and the Marshal needed help. Desperately.

  “Whooo’re yoo?” he heard a frightened voice in the cockpit call.

  “I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m the Pheasant Plucker’s son—but I’ll keep on plucking pheasants till the Pheasant Plucker comes,” he answered. And suddenly he grasped a new meaning in those words. What if the Pheasant Plucker never came? There were still pheasants that needed plucking. He’d have to do—he’d have to make do. That was what spizzerinctum and Diagonal Thinking were all about.

  “I ain’t no pheasant,” the girl snapped.

  She was a big-haired white chick, eighteen or nineteen, dressed as a Sassy Lassy and crazed with fear. On the floor of the cockpit was the pilot, stone dead—and on the small passenger deck lay another lass in a pool of blood beside the corpse of a large Highland Zinger.

  “Listen,” said Clearfather. “I don’t mean you any harm, but the people below sure do. Are there any weapons aboard?”

  “Noa!” sniffled the girl. “Jest haggises—promotional precooked giveaways.”

  “What’s that for?” Clearfather asked, pointing to the sound system. The underbelly of the Haggis, which consisted of an aluminum shell on a welded steel tube frame, was laden with heavy-duty concert speakers.

  “I can’t take noa moa bagpipe music!” the girl groaned. “Thass what made Big Elvis go postal.”

  A cry went up below as the big blonde called for the Martha Stewart portable barbecue.

  Clearfather hit the PLAY switch and cranked up the volume. When in doubt, try to create confusion. A swelling bagpipe tension poured down over the mounds like an airborne psychosis—and then squelched into a mind-jarring burr . . .

  Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,

  Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!

  Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,

  Painch, tripe, or thairm:

  Weel are ye wordy of a grace

  As lang’s my arm.

  My God, thought the Marshal, pinned down in the mini blimp’s shadow. That’s Sean Connery! Reciting Robert Burns’s “Address to a Haggis.�
��

  The savages swatted their hands to their ears, dropping their weapons, while Clearfather began raining down FREE promotional haggises, each with the fiery leer of Mr. McTavish promising in red tartan letters YEER HAGGIS IS REDDY!

  The ferals swarmed on the haggises—or were hit in the head with them. The Marshal saw his opportunity and scurried up John Travolta’s neck, loosened the catch-hook, and hung on. The Haggis instantly rose but not enough—and the Marshal could see he was going to get raked across the dry lake if he didn’t ascend. But he couldn’t hang on to everything he was carrying and the rope—he had to let go of his father’s lunch box. The release was dizzying—and therapeutic, too. It hit the Kevlar brute with the bazooka and, even with the helmet, momentarily knocked him out.

  “I’ll blow you out of the air!” the blonde screamed—but she couldn’t hear herself because of Sean . . .

  The groaning trencher there ye fill,

  Your hurdies like a distant hill,

  Your pin wad help to mend a mill

  In time o’ need,

  While thro’ your pores the dews distil

  Like amber bead.

  The transsexual picked up the goonda’s bazooka and took aim. Fortunately there was enough sunlight to make the surface of the Marshal’s badge from Star City a blinding mirror. With his left hand squeezing itself white on the line, the Marshal took his right and twisted the star, focusing the reflection into the blonde’s eyes. She wailed as if a laser had hit her, sending the rocket into one of her own armored cars.

  Clearfather was torn between trying to get moving and getting the Marshal up the rope. Figuring that if they couldn’t get away, the savages would start skeet shooting, he ran to the cockpit. “Do you know how to fly this thing?” he yelled. But the girl couldn’t hear.

  His knife see rustic Labour dight,

  An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,

  Trenching your gushing entrails bright

  Like onie ditch;

  And then, O what a glorious sight,

  Warm-reekin, rich!

  Clearfather needed a tornado. He pressed the starter button to awaken the turboprop engines and got a sandstorm instead. Shots whizzed past but only one connected, embedding itself in one of the support battens, which were designed to withstand the impact of a flock of geese. Steering the vessel wasn’t so easy, especially with the Marshal fluttering below.

  The vertical fins were rudders—the horizontal fins elevators. Fore and aft ballonets balanced the helium pressure and stabilized the trim. Air in through the valves, out through the scoops. Okay, he thought.

  Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,

  And dish them out their bill o’fare,

  Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware

  That jaups in luggies;

  But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,

  Gie her a Haggis!

  “Pull him up!” Clearfather yelled—but the girl wasn’t strong enough.

  “Take the controls!” he called while he yanked at the rope.

  The Great Dane, driven insane by the amplified Scottish accent and having consumed its haggis, ran barking across the sand waste. Fearing a collision with the approaching ridge and not knowing how to gain altitude, the girl was forced to bank hard. The Marshal hung on but the grappling hook drooped down low enough to pick up the giant dog by its spiked collar, and the cannibals found themselves suddenly faced with a very surprised harlequin Great Dane swinging at them like a wrecking ball. They scattered, giving Clearfather time to haul up the Marshal, although the added weight of the dog almost broke his arms.

  “Somebody hep me—we gotta git higher!”

  They were headed back toward the ghetto of satellite dishes. Clearfather made one mighty heave and the Marshal collapsed gratefully onto the deck. Clearfather ran to the cockpit and steered the Haggis back around but he couldn’t turn tight enough to clear the cannibals, who now had an open and nearing target. But they were afraid to fire for fear of hitting the blonde’s huge dog. The Marshal took advantage of their hesitation, taking aim with the Winchester. He picked off one shooter on the roof of an old UPS truck while Clearfather tried to master the ballonets and fins.

  The bikinied blonde was on the roof of the Hummer now, pointing a sniper rifle with a laser scope. Her first shot fouled the barrel of the Winchester and drove the Marshal to the floor of the passenger deck. She braced for a second and final shot, intending to turn the floating Haggis into a flaming ball of helium, when the Sassy Lassy lowered the boom and a shadow dropped out of the sky. The transsexual glanced up—too surprised to shoot or leap—as two hundred pounds of harlequin Great Dane landed on her like a giant haggis, caving in the roof of the Hummer. Instantly the dirigible gained altitude. A moment later an explosion shook the ground, flinging a figure into the ear of John Travolta. The Marshal cheered.

  “That big bastard with the welder’s helmet tried to ride my bike. I had it booby-trapped. Rest in pieces, old friend! May your spirit always be whole!”

  CHAPTER 4

  Once Upon a Haggis

  Clearfather sent the dirigible into a steep ascent and then leveled off when he was sure they’d clear the next ridgeline. The Sassy Lassy looked less pale but even more confused.

  “I’m Elijah Clearfather,” he said. “And this is my friend the Marshal.”

  The girl twisted her hair. “I’m . . . Maggie. Maggie Kane. I guess . . . I should thank yoo.”

  Clearfather wasn’t sure what to say. The blimp, which the Marshall discovered bore the name the Billy Connolly, sailed over the windblown airfields and once secret testing facilities, heading toward the Valley of Fire and the northern tip of Lake Mead.

  “We’re on a mission,” explained the Marshal.

  “What kine a-mission?” Maggie asked. “Yoo dope smugglers?”

  “No!” Clearfather shooed. “We’re going to South Dakota.”

  “Sheet. Why?”

  “I think—I have—family there,” Clearfather explained. “See . . . I’ve lost my memory.”

  “And that’s not all,” the Marshal mumbled—then clapped his hand to his mouth.

  “Whass hee mean?”

  “He means I’ve lost my penis.”

  “Say whot?” The girl frowned.

  “I’ve lost my penis . . . my dick. Or a lot of it.”

  “I shure as hell knowa whotta peenis is—doan yoo worry ’bout that.”

  “Bet you know what to do with one, too!” the Marshal remarked.

  “Hush yer mouth, Gramps. I’m jest sayin’ it ain’t the kine a-thin’ yoo loooze.”

  “No,” Clearfather agreed. “I bit my mine off.”

  “Say whot?”

  “Seriously.”

  The craft was equipped with a GPS Omni navigation system. Clearfather searched for the coordinates for Rapid City and locked them in. The 525-horsepower turboprop engines delivered a cruising speed of eighty miles an hour. The question was, did they have enough fuel?

  “Mister, I doan knowa whot game yoo playin’,” Maggie said and looked out over the platform. Below were scattered RVs and convoys, Clydesdales pulling stripped-down Isuzus like medicine-show wagons.

  Maggie Kane had been through the worst forty-eight hours of her life—and that was saying something. Trapped aboard the Haggis—the pilot had died of anaphylactic shock after being stung by killer bees, sending the craft careering with bagpipe music playing at merciless volume—straight into Big Elvis, who was swatting attack planes atop the Sony Cone—a collision that claimed the life of her friend and fellow Sassy Lassy Astrid, leaving her alone with Angus McLaren, one of the Highland Zingers. Figuring that it was his last night alive, he decided to go out with a bang and proceeded to mount Maggie, a notion she objected to strongly enough to stab him through the throat with one of the com-links. Out of control, with bagpipe music still playing, the Billy Connolly eventually swerved over Nellis when Maggie, in sheer desperation, heaved out the anchor line, which dragged across barbed
-wire fences and corroded car bodies before latching on to the ear of John Travolta’s decapitated head, which provided enough resistance to trigger the Haggis’s emergency shutdown mechanism, ending the flight of terror but leaving her stranded in Area 51 with three dead bodies and a lot of promotional precooked haggises.

  Being alone on board with those same three dead bodies plus now a lecherous old cowboy and a bald man who claimed to have bitten off his own penis wasn’t necessarily an improvement.

  “Don’t jump,” advised the Marshal, reading her mind. “Please. Without a parachute, you’d be like a bug on a windshield. I promise you nothing dishonorable will happen.”

  “That’s right,” said Clearfather.

  Maggie tried to relax. She’d survived killer bees, Big Elvis, and Angus McLaren, and she hadn’t jumped overboard yet.

  Raptors and Dragonflies were present but they paid the Haggis no mind. To the south lay the eroded red masterpiece of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River snaking green and brown. To the north, the condominium and high-rise sprawl of St. George smeared into the sandstone labyrinth of Zion National Park. The whir of the turboprops was steady and now without the booming Burns there was peace. For a moment Clearfather could almost forget the terror he’d released. Just then he looked down over where old I-15 turned into the elevated Robert Redford Environmentally Sensitive Expressway and saw . . . the Wienermobile.

  Dr. Tadd and Mr. Meese had survived! They were on their way to MormonLand! It had to be them, he thought. It had to be. Thank God! Thank . . . God.

  The joy of seeing the ludicrous vehicle safely on the road and well out in front of the refugees was interrupted by the Marshal raising the practical question of how they were going to dispose of the bodies. The old man consulted the map screen and concluded that the most discreet and respectful place would be Zion National Park. They chose the lava field side of the peak known as North Guardian Angel.