Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

  Deeper into the neighborhood, there’s more life. It isn’t long before a shipping truck comes rolling past. The trademarked Nimbus halo sparkles in the moonlight. The air down here is laden with brine and the chemical stench of refineries. When I get to the far side of the street, however, I pick up something else. It’s a mixed-up scent like many things at once. Sunlight and filth; burning hair and melted rubber; still water and old bones. None of it makes sense, and yet it still cuts through all the rest. I’ve never smelled anything like it, and stranger still . . . it’s moving.

  The scent is coming from down inside a sewer grate. A shadow slithers past. It’s huge. Could it be a giant? It seems unlikely. Not even a giant as clueless as Fiona’s gravedigger would squeeze himself into a sewer. Besides, this isn’t the scent of a giant. I prick up my ears to see if I can tune in its shape. What comes back is just as mixed-up as the scent. The hair all over my body rises to stand on end. Whatever’s lurking below the street, I don’t want to stick around and find out what it is.

  I back away from the grate. I’ve suddenly got a rather strong urge to get out of the shadows, to retreat indoors. Farther down the street, I spot an all-night diner. I lope toward it, grateful for its bright windows. With almost every step, I cast a glance over my shoulder. But there’s nothing there.

  When I push into the diner, I’m greeted by a sour-faced dwarvish woman. She’s boosted up on a rolling stepladder behind the counter, pouring coffee for a nixie. Without even looking up, the woman calls out. “We don’t serve runners in here.”

  I step forward, letting the door shut behind me.

  “Didn’t you hear me, sugar? No runners.”

  “I’m not. I’m just a wolf.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “I just need a glass of water.”

  She points to a sign behind the counter. Hominids Only. “There’s a tavern up the way, The Fox and Hound. Probably more your speed.”

  “I just passed it. It’s closed.”

  “Then you’re out of luck, I guess.”

  The nixie in the trench coat ogles me with rheumy eyes. Something dark and gooey leaks from his gills.

  “You won’t serve me, but you’ll serve him?”

  The nixie belches. “Watcha mowth, boy. I’s connected. I’s friensh in high playshes. I know Pa Nixie hisssself.” He fumbles with his coffee cup. The scalding liquid spills over his webbed fingers. “Ow!”

  “See?” says the woman. “You’re upsetting my customers.”

  It’s not me who’s upsetting him, that much is clear. The guy’s potbelly is busting through his clothes and the skin’s stretched so taut you can see his innards. Something with writhing tentacles slaps about inside, so he swallows another gulp of coffee. The thing in his belly flounders and squeals, and the nixie lets out another belch, this one even juicier than the last. Well, I think, that’s certainly one way to settle your stomach.

  “Listen,” I say to the woman, “all I’m looking for is a quiet place I can be for a while. I won’t cause any trouble.”

  The woman peers out through the window. She shuts her eyes, tightens her lips, and takes a deep breath through her nose. “Fine,” she says at last. “What do I care? I just work here, yeah? It’s the boss’s sign, not mine.”

  “Thanks.” I come all the way in and find a booth at the back. The nixie watches me keenly then stares daggers at the dwarf behind the counter. A moment later, the woman brings me a hot cup of coffee and a glass of water. “On the house,” she says, “provided you’re outta here quick.”

  “Thanks.”

  Down the bar, the nixie sneers at me. It’s rare to find one of them out in public. Water nixies: half-man, half-sea serpent, evolved from bottom-feeding angler fish. In the old days, they used their magic to make themselves beautiful, sleek hominids of the sea. But ever since they came ashore to corner the illicit dust trade, they don’t bother with the facade. These days, it’s nothing but sputtering gills, scaly rolls of blubber, and amphibious eyes like a pair of bursting plums. But I’m not here to admire the wildlife.

  I flip open the file and pick up where I left off.

  That’s why I need to tell you something, Henry. About what happened before I was arrested. As I’m sure you know from the trial, I was never a carpenter. That was a story I made up because you were too young for me to explain what it was I really did. How could I tell you I worked for Skinner, number one bagman for the nixies?

  Now, I don’t want to make excuses for what I did. I mean, I’m guilty, just like I ended up pleading in court. But listen, I was only supposed to shake down that old woman, get her to sign over her land. That’s all.

  It was Skinner who drove me to the property. Just before he let me out, he slipped me a hit of fairydust. It was a special blend, he told me. He said it would calm my nerves. Since I was pretty nervous, I took it. I’d never roughed up an old lady out in the middle of nowhere before. So I took it. And it did something to me. I was an animal again. Like a real animal, like a prehistoric wild thing. Next thing I knew I was tearing that poor girl and her grandmother apart.

  I’m not saying I’m innocent. I’m just saying I was under the influence of something that day. Something evil. That doesn’t make it right, of course it doesn’t, but I thought that maybe if you knew, you might see fit to come visit me sometime. We could talk about it. I miss you, son.

  Dad

  Dear Henry,

  I suppose you’re not coming, are you? I understand that. I wanted to tell you face-to-face what I’m going to tell you in this letter, but it doesn’t seem I’ll get the chance. It has to do with what I told you in the last one. And a bunch of ideas I’ve had along with that shrink I’ve been seeing, the one I told you about. I better just come out and say it:

  The fairies are still here.

  They never left us, son. They didn’t abandon us like everyone says. That’s all wrong. We figured it out, me and the Doc. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. There’s no dust around that can turn a regular guy like me into a coldhearted, bloodthirsty killer. That’s old-time magic. It could look inside you and bring out the best or, like in my case, the very worst. That kind of magic only comes from fairies, right? That’s why I need you, son. I’m in here and I’m not getting out anytime soon. And who’s ever going to believe a murderous convict like me? But you, son, you’ll be out of St. Remus soon. Then you can help me. You can find them. Because I think I know where they are.

  Dad

  Dear Henry,

  Why don’t you come see me? I really miss you, son. If you don’t believe anything I’ve said, that’s fine. If you think I’m a crazy old dog, I understand. Forget all that other stuff, and just come for a visit. I’d love to see you. Just once.

  Dad

  That’s the end of them. Four letters in total, undated and written with penmanship that’s shakier and shakier with every paragraph. When I look up, I see I’m the only one left. I’ve been so absorbed in reading, I didn’t even notice when the nixie seeped off into the night.

  “Sorry, sugar,” says the woman behind the counter. “You’ve been here long enough.”

  Outside, I find I’m tired and full of questions, but I need to sleep. I need to be sharp in the morning because tomorrow, for the first time in many years, I’m going to see my father.

  14

  THE EDGE OF A WOOD

  THE DREAM IS THE SAME EVERY TIME. THE DETAILS SHIFT FROM NIGHT TO night—the depth of the darkness, the distance from the road to the cottage, the way the wind blows—but everything that matters is the same. I’m always some amalgam of my father and me.

  It starts on the edge of a wood, late at night. The trees loom over me. The sky is fevered with fast clouds and the moon hangs like a phantom. I drop to all fours, padding deeper and deeper into the trees. Every one I pass comes alive, electrified with wind. Soon all I can hear is an endless swish of leaves. I still keep going, stalking forward, my belly skimming over the peat.

&
nbsp; There’s light up ahead, black leaves against a warm glow. Beams of firelight shine out through circles of thick glass. It’s a cottage in a clearing. And there’s an unlocked door.

  Inside, I see a little girl. She’s curled on a rug, covered up and warm inside a bloodred cloak. I push in on all fours. The door drags against my flanks. I urge the girl to sleep, hoping she’ll remain dead to the world. But each time she wakes up.

  Her eyes pop open. She’s a thinker, this girl, I can smell it. Before I even see her move, the poker’s in her hand, the tip glowing as deep red as her cloak.

  She jabs me with the poker, but I don’t feel it. The heat against my hide is nothing. I even watch as she tries to beat me, as my clothes and hair are singed and smoldering, as the hook of the poker sinks into my ribs and tears away the hide. I just stand there, letting her do it.

  Then, suddenly, I’m exploding with rage. I rise up to the ceiling in this tiny cottage and smother the girl with my weight. I sink my teeth into her throat. She’s dead with a single snap. Then, from somewhere behind me I hear the click of loose nails. The creak of old wood.

  Someone else is here. It’s the girl’s grandmother. She’s a spare figure, crooked as a winter willow. She also wears a cloak, but hers is black. The hood is pulled over her head so that her face is in shadow. The girl’s blood is all over me and I rise again, leaving the throatless body by the fire.

  The old woman is silent, standing motionless at the base of the stairs like a heap of rags thrown over a broom. There’s hardly anything to her, and I can’t even see her face. The rage fills me again and I lunge.

  The old woman doesn’t flinch. She lets herself be broken inside my jaws—and at first, it’s easy. Her body’s hollow, just skin and bone. But mostly bone, bones held together with papery flesh and threads of sinew.

  Frail as she is, though, I can never finish her. I gnash at her bones inside the cloak, extracting mouthful after mouthful from the rags, but there’s always more. Sometimes her face emerges briefly from the hood. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of a wicked grin.

  That’s when I realize—too late—that I’ll never finish her. The bones are growing faster than I can swallow them. The clicks and creaks aren’t coming from the stairs or the loose floorboard, but from the woman herself. Every joint has a flinty mind of its own. The old woman blossoms again and again, renewing herself with my every bite.

  Sometimes, that’s when I wake up. On those nights, I stand half a chance of getting back to sleep.

  But there are other times, too, when the dream keeps going, nights when a pain starts in my belly.

  It’s the bones. I can feel them, still moving inside me. Spidery shards that crawl together to weave and knit themselves into hands and teeth—and they’re anxious to escape.

  The first ones come out through my stomach. Then one will burst out from between my ribs. Others come through the chinks of my spine.

  Soon, I’m on the floor, howling. That’s when they really start tearing me apart. They snake up and crackle into my lungs. They puncture my heart, my throat, my face. And if I’m not awake at that point, I can always count on the two great horns that punch out through my eye sockets to do the trick.

  15

  GEORGE WILLIAM WHELP

  THE EAST CITY PENITENTIARY IS A SQUAT COLOSSUS, EMERGING THICK AND crude from the borough of Darkforest. It’s built on the crest of Sea Way Hill. From up here there’s a good view of the city. Smog grips every building like a fist, while on the opposite side the deadwood forest spreads out over the tundra. The prison reminds me of St. Remus: the high walls, the mechanical gates, the sandstone bastions. The place even comes with poker-faced guards, every one of them a glob.

  The ones controlling the gates eye me suspiciously. I have the blazer of my St. Remus uniform turned inside out. It may look like I don’t know how to dress myself, but at least they can’t tell just from a glance that I’m a juvie on the lam.

  “Can we help you?” one of them asks.

  “I’m here to visit somebody.”

  The guard has a face like porridge filled with rotten fruit. He shifts a pair of watery eyes to the clock. “You’ve got less than half an hour, y’know.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  He pushes a sign-in book at me. A cool breeze whips up the hill and the pages riffle. I dash down the first madeup name that comes to mind. Harry Wells. The guard, meanwhile, doesn’t pay attention. He picks up an old black telephone. “Who’re you here to see?”

  “George William Whelp.”

  I’m sitting alone at the center carrel in a bare room. A couple feet in front of my face is a glass wall with holes drilled through it in a pattern that resembles a flower. On the far side of the glass there’s another room, bare as this one. A buzzer sounds. There’s the squawk of an electric lock and the steel door on the far side creaks open.

  When my father enters, he’s draped in chains. There’s a guard on either side of him. Dad sees me and stops. His head hovers, looking too heavy for his neck. He peers at the first guard, as if that bullish face can explain what he’s seeing. Me. He looks backward, too, back out the door, but the other guard prods him forward. He hobbles to the glass.

  He’s nothing like I remember. I really have to search to see him. He’s an unfocused image of himself, a faded photograph. They push him into a metal chair and lock him down by the chain around his waist. He’s so thin. The hair on his face is molting away in patches. Underneath, his skin is pale and blemished. Several of his teeth are missing.

  “You got less than ten minutes,” says a loudspeaker.

  I put one paw to the glass. “Hi, Dad.”

  He barely moves. His lips tighten and his jaw opens and closes.

  “I came to see you,” I tell him. I can hear the clock’s second hand, going sip-sip-sip, swallowing our time. “I got your letters.”

  Dad turns and scrutinizes me out of one side of his face. There’s a bald patch on his throat. There’s a bruise, too. It snakes down from what hair he has left and slithers, mottled and blue, into the neck of his shirt.

  “They let me go,” I lie to him. “I’m free now. I can come anytime I want.”

  “Henry,” he says. His lips tremble. “You’re just in time.”

  “What?”

  “I heard about what they did to Doc.”

  “He killed himself.”

  He shakes his head, pulling himself forward. “They made him do it!”

  “Who?”

  “Same as they made me do it. The nixies.”

  He’s not listening to me. He’s wrapped up in his own world. All I want to do is talk to him. “How are you doing, Dad? Are you okay?”

  He ignores me. “I knew they’d let you go,” he says. “And now you can find them.”

  “Find who?”

  His eyes sparkle. “You will find them.”

  I look at him, trying to gauge how insane he is. “You mean the fairies.”

  “They’re still here, you know.”

  My dad’s face is in the midst of a slow collapse; his mouth is devoid of molars, and his eyes are sinking into his cheeks. “Dad? The fairies are gone. You know that, right?”

  He shakes his head vigorously. “Not true,” he says. “The nixies have them.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Why do you think their stuff is so potent? The only ones who could produce a dust like that would be them—the fairies.” He’s speaking so plainly I almost believe him. “That’s how they were able to get me to do it, to send me down the wrong path. Only real fairydust could’ve done that. It could only come from them. Which means—”

  “Nixiedust is fairydust.”

  Dad nods excitedly. “Means they’re still here! And you can bring them back!”

  I almost laugh. “Me?” I point at the guards over by the exit. “Why not the police?”

  Dad scoffs. “They’re on the payroll. The nixies bribe them. Can’t trust them. But if you could get close to Skinn
er, you could find something. Some proof.”

  “You want me to be a runner? Like you were?”

  “I’ve got a friend in there, Mattius. We used to run together. I hear he’s still there, though I’d be surprised if he’s still running. He’ll look out for you.”

  “But—”

  “Skinner holds tryouts about once a week. The next ones are tomorrow night.” Dad rattles off a whirl of details: a tavern in Dockside called the Woodsman; a secret entrance to an underground warehouse; a midnight race pitting wolf against wolf to find the fastest. “You’re fast, son, I know you are. It could be you.”

  “You realize this is insane.”

  He ignores this rather astute observation and presses on with his fantasy. “Now, whatever you do, if Skinner offers you dust, don’t take it. You understand me?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then listen!” His eyes bulge in their pits. “Skinner’s dust can make you do things—awful things. But here’s what I learned—in the hardest way possible: If he doses you up, there’ll be a moment, see? This one moment when you’re about to do something awful. That awful thing will fill you up and there’ll be a short circuit inside you.” He taps his skull with a claw. “For that one moment you’ll be in control. I didn’t see it coming, so I couldn’t do anything, but if you know it’s there, you can use it. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “Barely.”

  “Good,” he says. “There’s a place in Skinner’s refinery where all the conveyors of dust come from. No one’s allowed in there. I think that’s where they’ve got them.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head, examining my paws. What I really mean is: Dad, you are a total crackpot. Good thing he’s too wrapped up in his mad reverie to read between the lines. “Look, Dad, can we just talk? I haven’t seen you in—”

  “We are talking. What else is there to talk about except this?”

  I sigh. “Okay, even if any of what you’re saying is true, then what?” I move my eyes in a wide circle over the grim room with its guards and its dingy tiles. “Would it mean they’d let you go? Would finding the fairies do anything to help you?”