Just North of Nowhere

by Lawrence Santoro

  She answered. “They are from elsewhere,” she answered, eyes half shut.

  Milwaukee, popped into Bunch’s head. He’d never been there, but he figured it wasn’t Eelman territory so he never said it.

  “They are not of this world, of this time, perhaps...” She leaned forward, “Perhaps the Great Old Ones are not of this creation! In the presence of the Old Great Ones, we feel…” Her lip curled. “…a natural revulsion.”

  “They stink,” Bunch said, not looking where Cristobel's flannel shirt had opened on soft nut-brown skin.

  “Continue,” she said, still leaning forward.

  A black spot remained where the thing had squatted. “Like it let a huge turd.” Bunch said.

  Two men waited on the far side of the hole. Taller than most, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Their suits – whiter than anything Bunch had ever seen – kicked so much light he had to squint between his fingers to see their faces.

  “Eelmans,” Bunch said.

  They looked at him.

  “We wait,” one said. Maybe the one on the right, Bunch couldn't tell. It was three, maybe four-hundred feet to the clearing, and the voice had come from – criminies – from inside his damn head.

  “A nice old voice, though,” Bunch told Cristobel. “Smooth. Like Doc Mouth.”

  She nodded.

  “Come on. Quick, quickly!” Whoever talked first, this was the other. The one to the left was waving him to hurry. Bunch reckoned it was that one, hurrying him along. His voice was a shrill noise blasting over the rumbling trucks – vaults. “Time is wasting, time is!” he howled like a saw blade biting metal.

  “Like Einar when he gets to yelling customers? You know.” Bunch wanted Cristobel to understand.

  She nodded.

  “Yes. Come quickly,” the voice that sounded like Doc’s said inside his own damn head. “Quickly. The God waits...”

  The black thing flickered like it'd just been introduced.

  Cripes, I'm coming, Bunch had said inside his own head. He took a step forward and the ground wrinkled, the world flickered through a whole mess of colors and. . .

  . . .there he was: in the middle of the light, in the middle of the night, the Eelman brothers right in front of him, the blackness – which he now realized was a gaping pit – behind. Without thinking, Bunch blurted out, “well that never happens! Not to me, anyway. What the hell you doing here? Why am I here. And what're you doing. . .”

  The Eelman on the left – the Einar-sounding one – reached out and gripped Bunch's face with cold damp fingertips. Pinched him shut.

  “Do not fear us!” the one sounded like Doc said.

  “'kay.” Bunch grunted, his teeth chewing his own cheeks.

  “My brother has high sensibilities. Such as they are, they are easily assaulted.

  “'ahal’ed?” Bunch said.

  “He believes you are attacking. Tormenting with your hounds...

  “Hnds?” Bunch said.

  “Hounds. The creatures at play on the surface of your thoughts. Angry, angry thoughts!”

  Bunch tried looked at the Einar guy pinching his face. He was curling like a salted snail but managed to hang on.

  “'Kay,” Bunch said.

  The Doc said. “Would you mind?”

  Bunch was truly pissed. Squeezed face or not, second this Eelman lets go, he figured to go for him. Go for good! “Uh-hmm,” he said, pleasantly as he could while considering the wide and varied hurts he would unleash on the pinching Eelman, hell! Both of them!

  Then the guy let up, the two, howling in Bunch's head. They twitched, turned, and hopped. Still squinting down on Bunch the buzzy-voiced Eelman half tried running the direction opposite to his brother.

  “That’s when I realized,” Bunch said to Cristobel, “there weren't but one of them.” He was feeling smug. “Just most of two guys and one suit. They must've been hooked arm to hips.” Bunch was proud. “From there down, they were two guys again...maybe part of a third.” He was thinking slower, trying to remember. “Yeah. The suit seemed to have more legs than two guys and one suit would need.”

  Well, who knew about suits and, besides, there were wiggles inside that white cloth that nobody, not Bunch, anyway, wanted to – or should – know about. Especially not a lady.

  “Stop thinking so loud...?” Doc had yelped.

  “Like this...?” Bunch gave one more shot of murderous urges and the Eelmans danced some more.

  “Then, I stopped,” he told Cristobel. He sat back and smiled.

  She leaned closer, her breath licked Bunch’s cheek. “You assaulted. They feared you as a master of the Hounds of Tindalos.”

  “Uh-huh,” Bunch said.

  “The Tind'losi Beasts, Hounds of foulness,” she said. “They lust after…”

  “Uh-huh,” Bunch said.

  “They are creatures of the distant past…” She thought for a moment. “Or from a different dimension,” she added. “To this Eah'lachmani – the which is the proper way this 'Eelman' name is spoken – the hounds would have been visible; your anger, given tooth and claw. The Eah'lachmani would have seen your wrath as green dogs with blue tongues, fangs of cold fire...”

  “Uh-hunh!” he said, pushing out the sound. He wanted to get going!

  “But continue,” she said. She licked both lips.

  “Well, that was about what Doc Eelman...how do you say that?

  “Eee-AHCH,” she began.

  “Eee- Ah.” he said.

  “Lach,” she continued.

  “Lock,” he said.

  “Mani” she finished up.

  “Dogs...that's what Doc Eelman said I had. Dogs. So I stopped worrying them with my thinking thoughts.

  “What the hay's going on!?” is what Bunch said. He rubbed his face. He looked past the Eelmans, to the circled vaults, at the dark star-filled critter flapping, shivering by the edge of the woods. He looked behind him at the black pit.

  “And who's going to fill that damn thing up!” he'd yelled.

  “The Wailing Writher,” Doc said, still a little nervous.

  The black thing wrinkled and for a second, a sound like a billion moths stirred.

  “He better,” Bunch said.

  The Einar-Eelman, leaned forward. “We are fishing,” he said. Doc was dragged forward at the shoulder. “You followed the sign of Koth. You are a dreamer. One who makes dreams real. You are our guide.”

  Doc uncurled his arm. It unrolled like a rug-runner into a flat palm with one, two, three fingers.

  “He didn't have any of them lines on it, like you read,” Bunch said.

  “Yes, yes... What did he offer?”

  “A bitty little bug,” he said. “Funny critter, but mostly bug. I never seen one like it; little guy kept winking like a sick firefly.”

  She made that siren noise again. “The Jab'achar...” she said. “Most are terrified of the Jab'achar. It brings waking dreams.”

  “Uh-huh, Bunch said. “'Bout what Doc told me. They seemed happy I wasn't scared. 'He’s the hunter, he’s the Fisher...' one of 'em said. Don't remember which. They were talking about me.”

  “Fishers are not thinking men,” Doc had said. “A man of scholarship and high sensibilities would have fainted at the sight. A touch of the. . .” Bunch tried to say the name, “the Jabby-thing. The bug,” Bunch said, “'a touch of the Jabby would have driven a thinking man nuts.'“ Bunch was proud again. “Then he gives it to me.”

  “What?” Cristobel said? “What was your task!” she damn near shouted it.

  “Like I said: I was supposed to lead this group of Ghosts...”

  “Ghasts!”

  “Yeah. On a fishin' trip down that pit. Find the God they served, and that was that.”

  “And they said the name of the God?”

  “Yes they did!” Bunch was getting used to being proud. “It sounded like that stuff?” he was thinking. “They sell it over at the Wurst Haus...spoiled milk? Yogurt. And that other stuff with a name...peas, corn.
..?”

  Cristobel shrieked a little bit. She said a name.

  “Yep,” Bunch said. “That's the God I was supposed to take these Ghasts to see…” he tried again, “…Yogurt Succotash when he come rising from the pit.”

  Cristobel sat back. She stared at Bunch, wide-eyed. Terror, abhorrence, mind-twisting horror and mad disbelief played on her pretty face. There was, maybe, a little envy on the side. “He is one of the Great Old ones,” she said, “the spawn of the Nameless Mist.” She thought a second. “Others say he's ALWAYS been; he shares the rule of the universe with,” and Cristobel said another of those names filled with sounds that didn't go together.

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “And you said?”

  What Bunch had said to the Eelmans was, “Uh-huh. Then you'll leave town, right?”

  Both Eelmans nodded. Their smiles shone brightly in the dark of their mouths.

  Bunch sat quiet in the kitchen.

  “What?” Cristobel leaned to look at him. “You've gone dark,” she said.

  He didn't like thinking about the ghasts, didn't like thinking about the fat woman.

  “They had their daughter,” he said finally. His damn stomach was churning. He talked louder, drowning out the squirts and gurgles.

  “Them Eelmans. They said their daughter would come with me. Us. Me and the ghosts.” He shivered a little.

  The woman had stepped from behind the Eelmans. She was too of everything: Too short, too round, too bald, her bosoms too large, her feet too small; her skin, too white, too pale, and a bit too blue. Not to mention that every part of her face, eyes, mouth, nose holes – every part – was sewn shut. Big stitches, thick string. Too big, too thick. The too thick string pulled her too fat flesh, too much together. Bunch didn't ask whether the rest of her was sewed up too. He didn’t have to. She was also much too nude.

  He didn't say that. He blushed.

  “What is it?” Cristobel said. She covered his hand with hers. It was warm, hard.

  “She was fat. Fatter'n Vinnie Erickson.” That's all he was going to say and he said it.

  The fat woman’s face wrinkled, the smile stretched her stitches.

  “Turn round,” the Einar said.

  Bunch faced the pit. First, he didn't like knowing that fat woman was at his back. Then her too fat fingers slid onto his right shoulder. Her touch tingled.

  At that, the trucks…the vaults…began hissing a different song. They clanked, rumbled. Big doors boomed open, like distant thunder, the kind that makes you say, “That thunder out there?”

  When the fat woman put another hand on his left shoulder his back muscles wiggled under her touch. Fingers like roots grew inside his flesh.

  “Go forth,” the Eelmans said.

  Without thinking, Bunch headed for the hole in the world, the Jabby bug clenched in his hand. Wet sounds, one, two, three, four, splashed behind him.

  “Sounds that maybe a three-, four-hundred pound trout would make flopping on a flat rock.” Bunch said to Cristobel, happy to be off the subject of the fat woman. “Ain't no four-hundred pound trout anywhere I know,” he said. “But I know how a good 14-inch rainbow sounds, slapped down for gutting. These plops were like that, just bigger.”

  Without turning, he shouted back to the Eelmans. “Then you'll leave town, right?”

  “Yes,” both said. Now go...”

  “When I take these folk here,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “down there fishing...” he pointed to the hole, “Then you'll get out of town. Right?”

  “Yes,” the voices said. “Go forth...”

  “And you'll leave? Go away? Never come back? That right?”

  “Yes,” they said. “We have promised it.”

  Bunch went forth.

  “When the God's been served...” Einar added.

  Bunch didn't mention his last thought before the hole shut down behind them. It was, “...and you'll leave Cristobel Chiaravino up there on Slaughterhouse Street alone!” He never said that, to Cristobel.

  “You led the Ghasts? And the Daughter of the...” and she said that word again.

  “The Eelmans girl? Yep.”

  “Bearing the Jab'achar?”

  He nodded.

  “Into the pit of...?”

  “Yogurt. Yeah,” he growled. “Will you let me tell it?” He said, louder than he needed, but his stomach! He hated sitting with her and making noises. Like stomachs do.

  They walked downward for hours. He had no idea where they were. Some guide! They could have been damn-near Cruxton, for all he knew. He followed his gut. When his gut strayed, the Jabby buzzed and nudged his hand until he got right, then it went to sleep again. Dark as it was, he could see. Sort of. Like a bad picture on the TV over to the Wagon Wheel – dim, but you knew which team had the field. Figured the Jabby was doing that. Didn't know how, Bunch just figured!

  First couple hours was boring. And stinky! Those ghasts slurping along, making sucking wet sounds like they did, the fat woman probably adding to it. Bunch made a point of saying “ghast” correctly.

  First it was the usual critters – cave crickets, spiders, worms and zillion-leggers. In a while, the bugs started sprouting light, like light-up bugs above. Long-whiskered crickets hopped and glow-slugs wriggled in their own green light bulbs. Pretty.

  He had no one to say that to, at the time, so he kept his mouth shut. He told Cristobel in her kitchen.

  She smiled.

  Soon, even these little lights faded and it was dark again and they moved through that mental bad TV picture. On the walls and floor, just out of reach, Bunch could hear things; things creeping in the black, working at whatever it was they did.

  Then even these noises went away. Either there were no critters this far down in the world, or the critters that were shut up when Bunch, the fat woman and the ghasts came slopping down the path.

  “God be doggoned, woman!” he shouted suddenly.

  “What?” Cristobel screamed. She twitched right out of the story.

  “I could eat a house,” he shouted. “I haven't eaten since... Well, I get to that.” He was tired of shouting his gut down.

  She jumped to her feet. “I'll feed you. Talk, keep talking!” she shouted as she wrapped an apron around herself.

  Knowing grub was coming, relaxed Bunch. The room was warm and already smelled good from Cristobel and the smell of the firewood he'd chopped for her and stacked in the pantry porch two weeks ago. Soon the place sizzled and smelled like food.

  That begun, he started in on the tail end.

  Something. A hair, a cobweb, tickled his face. Without thinking, he stopped. The stinky things behind him also stopped. They slurped against the stone path. The fat woman came up, bump, against his back and for a second Bunch felt crawly where her gut pressed his skin. She backed off, but his hairs still prickled.

  “Wait,” he said, and inched forward. Now it was truly dark. Even his TV eyes were off. Every few steps, small things touched him, tiny claws scrabbled over his feet, a spook breathed on his face, hands, arms. He didn't like the feel. When he felt them, he inched another way. After three, four steps, he couldn't move, not a bit, no matter where he shifted, where he turned, the little touches found his skin.

  Without thinking, he opened his hand, the hand that held the Jabby. Cold fire lit out of the little bug's tail. At first, Bunch saw his hand in the glow. A thread, slim as spider silk, lay across his palm. When the light caught it, green brilliance filled the strand and squirted into the darkness. The tail-glow from the Jabby bug spread, riding the threads, streaming like bat-piss in a moony night. Where one glowing string crossed another, the light split and spread. In a blink, the dark world filled with a glowing network, a rainfallen spider web catching star light.

  He saw where they were.

  They'd emerged from the long cave and now stood near the wall of a vast cavern. Behind him and his stinking train, the wall rose to a dome of black rock. The walls arched up and away, maybe fore
ver but probably not. The spreading web of light disappeared into a million tiny caves that dotted the inside of this vast honeyhive. All around, the air was shot through with the threads that sucked light from the tail of the Jabby-bug in Bunch's hand.

  They had stopped when they should have. Bunch's bare toes hung over the end of the world. A black hole, miles across and who knew how deep, spread before them. None of the glowing threads plunged into that darkness, no light brightened that hole. . .but from it something rose. A big breathing was rising to join them. Below, invisible lungs sucked, and all the world's air rushed past; the wind at his back shoved Bunch toward the pit, closer to the night that rose at his feet.

  The slopping, farting mess behind, chirped and purred like kitties tearing fish guts. The fat woman rooted deeper into one shoulder, then the other.

  The Jabby-Bug giggled. Then, it said something made him tear his eyes from the rising blackness. He looked at the bug, saw it clearly now. Not a bug, the Jabby was covered in a fine, fine fur, its body white, soft, not shell-hard like a bug ought to. The damn thing was covered with flesh. Its feelers reached out three, four feet, and like little hands, they felt the wind.

  Ugliest thing about the little bastard was its head. It had no bug face: Its eyes were like a man's, its lips looked as though they could smile, scream, talk. Worse, the mouth had a tongue. The tongue licked the light. Tasting it, Bunch figured. Then it turned and looked at Bunch.

  “Your dream awakens.” The Jabby said. “Now eat!”

  Cristobel's kitchen sizzled. Heat poured off the stove carrying good smells with it. “Yes,” she said. “And...”

  “Then,” Bunch said, getting hungrier by the minute. “Then them damn Ghost things...”

  “The Four Ghasts? Yes?”

  “They started hooting.”

  “Yes?”

  “Then that fat woman. She up and started flying. Flying straight up...”

  Cristobel stared.

  “...me attached. Her dug into my arms!”