This thought has not occurred to him, perhaps. Then that same broad grin returns to his face and he leans backward into his leather office chair.
“Oh, I get it. You’re the suicidal type. I guess that’s my mistake. I thought you were the crusader type, instead. We’ve been following you up the coast for months, you know. Not that we had much trouble tracking your trail of dead bodies. Like bread crumbs in the forest. Ha! I should write a poem about that! Maybe I already did. Did I? I write so many, I sometimes have difficulty keeping them all organized. Up here.” The Guide taps the side of his head. He sucks his tongue to clear his mouth of his own blood. He swallows pointedly. “Maybe it’s a good thing we took on extra work this year. You know. To pay the bills. Oh? You didn’t know The Clan of the Immaculate Strangulation has branched out into other enterprises. Your ignorance is no surprise, really. It’s something of a secret. Do you mind?” He gestures behind him at the array of monitors, keyboards and other controls.
When I nod, without fully turning he reaches behind him to zoom one of the cameras. He says, “Look at them, Scientist. My lovely Terminals. Burn-outs, every one of them. By the end of the year, most of them will be dead from brain-fry, and nothing I can do about it. Oh, sure, I could hunt up replacements, but they’re hard to find these days, what with all the competition. In fact, I’m no longer sure they’re worth the trouble. The quality of available offerings has plunged. I’ve been scraping the gutter for months just to keep the ranks filled. No,” sighs The Guide authoritatively, returning his attention fully to me, “the future is in non-Terminals. After all, there are enough broken minds out there to fit the need. Most of them are suicidals like you, of course, and that makes them a bit difficult to handle. No leverage, you understand.”
Again, he motions for freedom of movement. Again, I nod.
This time, he reaches into a box resting atop the desk. To my delight, The Girl has the knife under his chin again before he can thrust his fingers beneath the lid. The Guide chuckles blackly, continues forward with this hand, though more thoughtfully now, and then he extracts a fat cigar, waggling this between his fingers to show how harmless it is. Hissing angrily, The Girl retracts the knife and then rifles the remains of the desk. Unsurprisingly, she finds no weapons. As I said earlier, something about the Terminus agent drives us to use our hands.
After he offers me a cigar and I refuse, The Guide shakes his round Asian head with its close-cropped bang of hair, and he says, “A c-note. That’s what this brand cost before the end of the world. Now? Free! Not a bad deal, I suppose, but it takes the fun out of life, not having to hustle for it. Don’t you agree? Oh! You don’t mind if I smoke. Do you? Of course you don’t! No more worrying about cancer! No more worrying about the mortgage! The car payment! Insurance! Tuition for the k-,” he starts to say the k-word, but remembers that savage rap across the lips and catches himself with a smile.
Instead, he clips the rounded end of the butt, then puffs the cigar behind a lighter until its flat-end glows. “Ah, that’s fine. Are you thirsty? No? I have a hundred-thousand-dollar case of Burgundy stacked over there, along with a case of five-hundred-dollar-per-bottle Scotch. Caviar. Smoked oysters. Buttered king crab. Lobster. The best.” The Guide tips his head, conceding, “All of it canned or bottled, of course. Still, it’s very good. Won’t you join me for dinner?”
I growl. My impatience shows.
“Of course, of course! Get down to business! No time for frivolities. No time for fun! Ah, it reminds me of the old-world! Work! Work! Work! Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Expanding the business. Growing The Clan for the future. Now that’s a funny thought, isn’t it? The future! I know you suicidal types don’t much care for the future. You don’t believe in it. Nevertheless, the future exists! It’s coming! They want you to be a part of it, Scientist. A big part of it! That’s why they hired me. To find you. To bring you into the fold, so to speak!”
Here, he puffs the cigar and then slides along the desk to a cabinet standing at its end. Gingerly, ever mindful of The Girl standing danger close with her big knife ready, he reaches into one of its drawers and extracts a crystalline bottle of fine whiskey, using his other hand to retrieve three tumblers while he clenches the stogy between his teeth.
“A bit of celebration is in order, that’s all. It’s been a long time coming, our first meeting. Did you know? How could you? Drink? Drink?” He turns first to me and then The Girl. We both refuse, but he pours all three glasses a third full, lifting the last to his lips. “A toast! To The Scientist and his lovely protégé! To the future!”
He sips. He puffs. He cocks his head to ponder.
“Of course, that was a tricky bit of business. The hiring process. Naturally, I came among them to kill them all, to choke them all to death and finish the glorious work of Terminus! Yes, indeed! An empty planet! That’s what I wanted for so many years afterward. For a long time, I believed the process had failed. Imperfect! Why leave so few of us alive? It didn’t make sense to me, so I thought it must have fizzled somehow. I thought it needed a bit of tidying at the end. I’m still not so sure. Then again, how do you pay a man who has everything? Everything! Diamonds. Sapphires. Gold. Platinum. Fine cars. Big houses. That’s what it means to hire someone. Doesn’t it? Pay? How to pay me, the head of a Clan? A god! Oh, I’m not a megalomaniac. I recognize the fact that I’m not THE god, just A god. Still. A god! What could a god possibly need?”
Another sip. Another puff.
He asks, “Give up? Nothing! That’s what! Nothing at all! They couldn’t offer me anything in the here and now, BUT they could offer me something that’s not in the here and now. They could offer me the future!” He hisses this last word like a gameshow host, his cigar-laden right hand sweeping wide. “It’s a brand new world!” More showmanship. “As I slipped the garrote around the headwoman’s throat, she started talking so fast I could barely understand her. Lucky for her, though, I just managed to keep up. By then, I was already thinking about some of the same things, myself.”
Again, with that smoking right hand, he sweeps the monitors, all filled with his monstrous horde, which mills psychotically back and forth in the space surrounding the truck, occasionally erupting in violence when one of them kills another and is attacked by the remainder, in turn. “Look at them! They’re falling apart! Ah, it was fun while it lasted, but then nothing lasts forever. Does it? No. It does not. A smart businessman plans for the future while the present provides, not after everything has failed. So I decided to branch-out. I decided to diversify. Bounty hunting is the next big thing.
“Actually, that presents a bit of a problem, doesn’t it? I mean, nobody will hire a bounty hunting firm that calls itself ‘The Clan of the Immaculate Strangulation’, will they? No. It’s too… Terminal. Ha ha ha. That’s a good one. Terminal. So now I need a new name. I’ve been picking through a short list. What do you think of ‘The Clan of the Not-So-Immaculate but Sometimes-Necessary Kidnapping’? No? Yeah, me neither. It’s too long. A good name is short. To the point.”
Now I step forward threateningly. I growl, “If you don’t come to the point soon, I’m going to make a point of my own by breaking your neck and having The Girl run that big blade of hers through all the little holes in your head, one at a time!”
The Guide giggles. “Right! Right! Right! To work! To work! And no time for play! And the point is,” he chimes, again imitating a gameshow host about to reveal the hidden prize behind curtain number one, “you have a hot date with a very important lady! We can be there before nightfall, you know, and I am so glad you decided to come in from the cold when you did! It’s been a long and difficult chase, but now it’s over and all is well! So let’s get going!”
He has apparently taken for granted my desire to entertain him. Gritting my teeth, I refuse to admit my curiosity. Instead, I say, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Ah, don’t do that, Scientist! Don’t do that! Not that! Don’t play hard to get! I might be a crazy god, b
ut I’m not a stupid one. Or blind! I see a spark of interest in your eyes! Who wouldn’t be interested? Huh? Who? Even I must admit my interest in putting the world back together again. I mean, it’s fun running The Clan and all, but not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. There’s no challenge in it, not really. Most of the people we strangle already have a death wish. It’s like we’re doing them a favor, Scientist! Sometimes I get to feeling all warm and snuggly like a goody-two-shoe, or something. Like I’m some kind of saint, bringing peace to the tortured mind or giving closure to the unresolved sin! I mean, YUCK! Right? That’s no good!”
The Guide sips and smokes and pouts, his expression suddenly crestfallen. Like a petulant child, he whines, “I want the old world back. I know it’s probably hard to believe, but I miss the cops-and-robbers bit. You have no idea how many people we’ve choked-out, Scientist. No idea. In the old world, I’d be public enemy number one! I’d be the subject of endless documentaries and newscasts. I’d be the world’s most sought-after anti-celebrity! Wouldn’t I? You bet I would! But here? Today? In this place? Nothing! Hell, most folks don’t even run from us! They just sit and wait while we slip the cord around their neck and pull! It got to be a fulltime job! Imagine that, will you? Me! Working for a living! There’s something basically wrong with that!”
Despite my better resolve, my grin is lopsided and rueful, “You’re telling me you want to get the world working so you can prey on it again?” For the first time, I see The Girl’s face change. She is angry.
“Exactly! Now you get the picture, Scientist! Somehow, I knew you would understand! Like I said. Smart. Very smart.”
Before I can stop her, The Girl lashes out with the knife. Though distracted, The Guide is fast, too, in his own way. Like I said, Terminus had a way of winnowing out the weaklings. Only the strong survived.
Thus, he manages to retract his left hand before she can chop it off. Instead, he loses only the tip of his pinky. Slinging the hand painfully, blood flies. I intervene, pushing her back, though gingerly to avoid her ire, myself.
Hissing, The Guide fetches a kerchief from the breast pocket of his silk suit to staunch the flow. It immediate floods crimson. Digits bleed that way, I learned during Terminus. Fast and hard but briefly.
The Guide chortles in a self-deprecating manner. “The Protégé doesn’t approve, I guess.”
Shrugging, I back away from them both, assured he will not retaliate and she will not advance again. Not any time soon, at least.
The Asian, I warn, “Better skip that part for now. Get back to the gristle.”
“Ha,” he laughs sickly, “you made a funny. Is there a poem in that, do you think? Maybe, but I don’t care to write it. That hurt, you know!” Now The Guide turns a reproachful but mild eye on The Girl. “You didn’t have to do that!”
When she jerks forward again, he flinches and uses both hands to cover his head. “Okay! Okay! Okay! Sheesh! I get it! Never mind with the jokes!” Lowering his hands again, once she fails to follow through on her latest threatened attack, The Guide searches his desk and then the carpeted floor.
Finding his fingertip, cut short just past the last knuckle, he blows off the dust bunnies and then lays it on his blotter, fetching an office-style Scotch tape roller. As he labors to staunch the blood from his pinky stump and then tape his finger back together, he continues his pitch, though his once cocky, pinched voice wavers a bit.
He banters absently, “Where did you find that one, Scientist? Holy cow, Batman! We could have used her back in the day! No ninja-style assassin was ever so quick! I think I’m in love! Imagine. Me plus her; that equals a whole mess of little gangbangers. The Yakuza got nothing on that! Ha ha ha!” Though she makes no move to assault him, The Guide flinches, sharply turning his head to keep her warily in view, “Oh. Never mind. I thought you had jumped off again. There’s a good girl. Say, listen. From now on, just to be safe and make certain nobody else loses a body-part for a misunderstanding, let’s just make friends. Okay? From here on out, just assume I got nothing but respect for you. Mad love and affection and all that. I learned my lesson. Take the chick in the room seriously.”
Then he returns to the tape and his pinky finger, grumbling. “I should have learned that lesson a long time ago. The only girls who survived were already one foot in. Know what I mean? They are vicious! Like wildcats with cockleburs up their butts! No offense!
“Say, Scientist,” he glooms, as the tape refuses to stick for all the blood, “what set her off, do you think? For all that talk, what about… those few words… turned the trick?”
Shrugging and moving across the cargo bay to prop one haunch on the corner of his desk so I can toy with the camera controls, I reply, “Maybe it was that bit about putting the world back together again. Or maybe it was more about putting it back together exactly the way it was.” I glance up to see her beautiful green eyes sparkling maliciously, and I know I’m treading thin ice. “I have to agree with her on those points. I don’t much care what becomes of this place now, but I do know I don’t want to make it like before.”
“Ah,” enthuses The Guide, his tongue working at one corner of his mouth as he finally manages to get the two ends of his severed finger together again with the nail on top, “hope! That’s a dirty word, Scientist! A sucker word! Got to be real, extra careful with that word these days! Still, I think I can understand her upset. Yours, too. Maybe you’re right. Of course, it’s all a long, long way off. If it could ever really happen.”
“Look, mate,” I groan, zooming a body cam from one non-Terminal to another, “I like you and all, the same way I like stinky toe cheese. So just come to your point before my patience wears through.”
“Toe cheese,” cackles Guide, “ha! Another funny! Okay, you’re right. Daylight’s a’wasting! So, where was I before Sir-Hacks-a-Lot tied into me with that meat cleaver of hers? Right! The date! You’re late! You’re late! For a very important date! Three hours south down the coast, Scientist, your destiny awaits.”
Frustrated, I kick his chair. His pinky pops out of the tape and rolls across the blotter. Undeterred, The Guide fetches it again and continues his work as though uninterrupted, but he gets the point, too. “It’s one of those fruity little villages that went self-sufficient, Pre-Terminus. They set themselves up there. Electricity. Lights. Gas stations. Cars. Supermarkets. You name it, they got it. Like a Little America. Maybe a hundred people, most of them educated-types. Teachers. Doctors. Engineers. Heck, they even have an artist or two and, of all things, a lawyer! Man, I almost kicked that one out of the gene pool, let me tell you! It was all I could do to keep my garrote in my pocket!”
“What do they want with me?”
The Guide abruptly stops working and turns a dumbfounded eye on me, as though I am an imbecile and he my teacher. “Isn’t that obvious? They call you The Scientist, don’t they?”
I exchange glares with the girl. Flat as ever, her face betrays nothing, but her eyes question. They are almost… encouraging… hopeful.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Returning to his labor, The Guide adds, “Okay, then try this part of it. They got a lead on Terminus. They think they know what caused it, but they need expert assistance working it all out. They want to be certain, you know. Guesses just won’t cut it. They want proof. Real, scientific-style proof. You could do that, couldn’t you?”
My pulse races. I lick my lips. Was the vile little man sincere?
Again, I kick his chair. Again, the pinky-tip pops out of its circle of tape. This time, The Guide groans, afraid time is growing short for knitting his digit back together again.
The Girl steps forward, and the Asian slips sideways against the armrest of his chair, away from her. Instead of a knife, she has extracted a first-aid kit from that bottomless purse. She jerks his hand toward her and scoops up the fingertip.
“Hey, uh, Scientist?” he quips nervously. “Do you think I should trust her?”
“I think
you have no choice. Be glad she didn’t simplify things by taking off your hand.”
With a pre-threaded suture needle, she stitches a handful of knots around the edge of the finger stump, binding it to its lost partner. Then she glues it all around and tapes it down with proper medical tape. Adding a metal finger splint, antiseptic, a bandage, and yet more tape, she finishes the job and backs away again.
Amazed at the sight of his mended injury, The Guide sits straighter in his swivel chair and alternates a wondrous gaze back and forth between The Girl and me. “What made her change her mind about my pinky, do you think-y?”
“Hope,” I grunt. “Finish your story.”
“Right. So, that’s it, I guess. I was going to strangulate them all, immaculate-style, but didn’t. They told me about their idea and asked if I could help. I said I knew about a guy called ‘The Scientist’, and they suggested I look you up. Here we are. I will now entertain questions from the audience.”
I ask, “Why do I need you? Why wouldn’t I just go there, myself? Or not at all.” With this last suggestion, I ignore the green flash of The Girl’s eyes.
“You don’t know the way.”
I nod. The girl is back at his throat with the knife.
His face a grimace, The Guide twists his head negatively. “Nope. Won’t work. I don’t care what you do. I won’t tell.” He sticks out his tongue.
Contemplating my options, I inform him how I could easily have The Girl take him apart, one joint at a time. I remind him how gently persuasive pain can be.
“Sure, you could make me talk, if you try real hard,” he grunts through her savage grip, his throat constricted by the presence of her razor-sharp blade, “and sure you could walk the five hundred kilometers between here and there, but wouldn’t it be faster in the truck? Huh?”
I nod again. The Girl backs away again.
“You know what the highways and streets are like,” he enthuses, smoothing the ruffle of his blood-speckled suit. “With me and the Clan, you could get there in style. We have a sort of understanding, Clan-to-Clan. Live and let die, you see. Since we’re all working toward the same goal, we don’t hassle with territorial claims. It’s all about the nihilism.”
Terminus: A Novella of the Apocalypse Page 5