Dead Man's Hand

by George R. R. Martin

  He caught his breath at the pain that lanced through his arm. Both bones in his forearm were broken. The radius had ripped through his flesh, and blood spurted in time with the pulses of agony surging up his arm.

  Brennan breathed deeply and rhythmically to get the pain under control as he ran down the corridor and grabbed the ladder leading up to the basement. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the panda coming down the corridor a lot faster than he thought possible. He transferred the journal to the crook of his injured arm, groaning as the torn flesh and broken bones took its weight, and fumbled in his hip pocket.

  He took the transmitter from his pocket, activated it. “Crystal Palace,” he croaked. He dropped it as he pulled himself up the ladder with his good hand.

  The trapdoor at the top of the ladder resisted his efforts at first, but opened when he banged his good shoulder against it, sending waves of agony pounding down his injured arm.

  Brennan pulled himself into the storeroom and slammed the trapdoor back down. A flight of rickety wooden stairs went up to the first floor, and Brennan took them at a run, bursting into a corridor that led to the Palace’s rest rooms.

  A woman going down the corridor toward the bathrooms took one look at Brennan, bloody-faced and with the radius of his right arm sticking out of his flesh like a jagged spear stub, and screamed. Brennan bolted past her and burst into the taproom of the Crystal Palace.

  Everyone stared at him. No one tried to stop him as he plowed into the taproom, but the press of customers formed a blockade that Brennan couldn’t push through.

  There came another piercing scream from the hallway, and Brennan knew that Lazy Dragon was still on his trail. And he didn’t have the problem that Brennan did.

  Lazy Dragon simply crashed through the crowd, scattering it like screaming tenpins. Brennan, knowing he wasn’t going to outrun the panda, turned with his back against the bar, his right arm an agonizing hunk of dead meat hanging from his shoulder.

  The smart customers were leaving. The slow, the curious, the drunk, and the stupefied stayed to watch as the panda closed on Brennan, its cute little face grinning a grin that exposed razor-sharp teeth capable of biting off an arm with a single chomp.

  “Give me the book!” Fadeout commanded from behind the bear, but Brennan shook his head. “Take it,” Fadeout ordered, and the panda advanced like slow, inescapable doom.

  Brennan gathered himself for a final attempt to escape as the panda shuffled forward on his hind feet. He feinted to his left, quickly shifted low and to the right, and almost scooted away.

  Almost.

  The ace slammed a paw down across Brennan’s back and it felt like the ceiling had fallen on him. Brennan dropped to his knees with the breath squeezed from his lungs, rolled, and came to his feet right in front of the panda. The ace slapped the journal away from him, as easily as taking candy from a child, and Fadeout retrieved it.

  “Finish the job,” he told Dragon.

  The remaining spectators crowded as best they could to the edges of the room.

  “Leave him alone.”

  The unexpected voice sounded calm in the hushed silence, and oddly gentle. The panda turned slowly, one gigantic paw still raised and ready to smash Brennan to jelly.

  A squat, hunchbacked figure had materialized in the open area between the onlookers and Brennan and the panda. Dragon, his eyes on Quasiman, swatted at Brennan, who took the blow on his shoulder and managed to roll with it a little. He smashed against the bar with a jolt that brought tears to his eyes. Somehow he managed to pull himself to his knees and say, “We need the journal,” before collapsing in agony.

  Quasiman advanced slowly, dragging his stiff left leg behind him. “Give me the book,” he told Fadeout, and as he switched his attention to Fadeout, the panda charged.

  It struck Quasiman like a runaway train smashing into a cliff face. The two hurtled backward into the screaming spectators. It was a miracle that no one was crushed as Dragon’s momentum crashed them both through the wall. Wood shattered and pipes burst and a spray of water showered the room. Brennan pulled himself to his feet as they came crashing back through the hole they’d made in the wall, the panda first, Quasiman after him.

  Quasiman lifted a heavy wooden table and battered his foe. His first blow crushed the panda flat on the floor, shattering the table to kindling. The panda got to its feet and charged at Quasiman, smashing him through the bar and into the large mirror and racks of bottles behind. Lupo deserted his post with a despairing yowl as mirror and bottles burst into a million scintillating shards.

  Brennan swayed on his feet, undecided. He wanted to help Quasiman, but realized there was nothing he could do against Dragon. He wanted to follow Fadeout, but the ace had already managed to disappear in the dark room filled with running, screaming people. Dragon and Quasiman smashed through the bar again and rolled about the floor like angry behemoths, punching and kicking and clawing one another.

  The panda had blood on its fur, Brennan wasn’t sure whose, and Quasiman’s shirt had been ripped off his back, exposing the mass of bone and flesh that was his hump.

  Brennan’s nose twitched at a sudden foul smell in the air. It was gas, natural gas. The battling aces had broken a gas line as well as a water line when they’d smashed through the wall. Brennan had a moment of calm, coherent thought, realizing that everyone had to get out before a spark ignited the gas that had seeped into the room. He turned to shout to everyone to leave, but it was too late.

  There was a muted whooshing roar and flames blossomed near the shattered wall. Someone yelled “Fire!” and the pandemonium was complete.

  There was a panicked flight toward the door. Some were trampled, but cooler heads somehow dampened the frenzy. Brennan realized that it would be impossible to force his way through the crowd, so he headed to the stairway that led to the exits on the upper floors. He paused at the foot of the stairs and watched Quasiman and Dragon waltz around the floor in a clumsy dance. The panda’s paws were on Quasiman’s shoulders and Quasiman had his hands locked around the animal’s throat. Its snarling, spitting face was only inches from Quasiman’s.

  “Quasiman!” Brennan’s voice cut through the panic like a bullhorn through fog. “Break it off! Quasiman!”

  He never knew if the joker heard, whether he’d decided he’d had enough, or whether his brain slipped off, wandering God alone knew where. Quasiman suddenly vanished, teleporting away just as the panda snapped its jaws shut in a bite that would have taken Quasiman’s face off. It groped around in bewilderment for its vanished foe and staggered into a pillar of flame that suddenly shot from the hole it had helped pound in the wall.

  The air was suddenly speared by the scent of burned fur, and the panda tottered about, spreading the fire as it bumped into the shattered bar and the broken furniture that littered the floor. It finally stopped and plopped down on its rear. It let out a few whining bleats, then seemed to shrivel into itself, shrinking to its original negligible size.

  Brennan started to go upstairs, then remembered Mother and the homunculi in the basement. He hesitated, cursing himself, then headed back for the corridor that led to the basement storage room and the chamber below.

  The corridor was thick with smoke. Brennan ran, bending below the acrid fumes, found the open trapdoor, and went down the ladder. The air suddenly became searing hot, and Brennan knew that the fire had spread to the storeroom above. Manikins were scurrying from Chrysalis’s secret chamber, wailing and crying like lost cats.

  Brennan looked inside. Mother had pulled away from the wall and was flopping and squirming on the floor like a living mattress. Most of the homunculi had pulled away from her, but those attached with umbilical cords were as trapped as she was.

  Brennan hesitated, almost turning and leaving; then a vast telepathic wave of fear and desperation washed over him, so powerful that even his nonreceptive mind could sense it. Whatever she looked like, Brennan realized, however hideous and inhuman her shape, Mother was
still a person.

  He didn’t know if he’d be able to drag her away with only one arm, but he knew that he had to try. He took a deep breath of the smoke-fouled air, gritted his teeth, and stepped into the secret chamber.

  “I’m coming,” he called.

  He ran into the chamber and managed to tip up a corner of Mother’s rectangular body. Her flesh was warm and rubbery and pulsating, and it had a pleasant, somehow soothing smell even in the smoky chamber. He got down on his knees and somehow managed to hoist her onto his back.

  Sparks sprinkled from the ceiling and smoke rolled into the chamber like thick fog.

  “It’s all right,” Brennan shouted. He caught his breath at the horrible pain in his broken arm. “We’re going to make it.”

  Then the ceiling fell in.

  11:00 P.M.

  The sound of singing floated through the night, a ragged drunken harmony in a couple different keys. The lyrics were something about hanging Leo Barnett from a sour-apple tree. The path curved off to the left, but Jay cut across the grass and through a stand of trees. Blaise followed desultorily, kicking at the occasional rock.

  The fire was out; the only light came from a few embers glowing feebly amidst the ashes. It wasn’t until they were quite close that Jay realized the group of jokers squatting by the tent wasn’t a group at all. Or maybe it was, if you count Siamese quints as a group.

  By then the singing had stopped.

  All the eyes were looking at him. The five bodies were twisted and malformed, flesh flowing into flesh in places and ways that made Jay want to turn his head. He wasn’t even sure you could really call them quints; there seemed to be five bodies, but they shared four heads and maybe seven legs between them. On the other hand, they’d come out way ahead on the arm-and-tentacle count.

  “Oh, gross,” Blaise said with astonishing tact.

  Jay ignored him, and hoped the jokers would, too. “Maybe you could help me,” he said. “I’m looking for a friend of mine, name of Sascha. Skinny, slicked-down hair, kind of a fussy dresser. Has one of those little pencil mustaches like you see on desk clerks in old movies.” No response. “No eyes. Did I mention that? Just skin.”

  Four mismatched faces regarded him dully. Jay couldn’t decide if they were stupid or hostile or what. He waited a long awkward moment and tried again. “Maybe you don’t know him. He used to work at the Crystal Palace. You guys from New York?”

  “I can make it answer,” Blaise said eagerly. “Just watch. I’ll make it get up and do a little dance.”

  “They don’t talk,” a woman’s voice said from behind them.

  Jay turned around. He could barely make her out, just a shadowy form sitting under a tree. “I heard them singing,” he said.

  “They sing,” the calm voice replied. It was a young woman. Through the branches, he could see the moonlight reflected on pale white skin. Her dress was unbuttoned down the front, and she was cradling something in her arms. “They sing, but they don’t talk.”

  “Oh,” Jay said. He stopped a few feet away from her. He could see one breast, pale and cone-shaped. A baby was nursing at the other. She stroked it gently as it sucked. She looked very young, no more than eighteen, sad and pretty. Her baby in her arms was a round red thing, like a bowling ball made of flesh. “I’m sorry,” Jay said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.…”

  “I know where Sascha is,” the woman said.

  In the darkness behind her, someone moved. Jay looked up, saw eyes peering out of the bushes. They were pale green, and burned with a dim feral glow. He was staring at them when he heard a soft footstep behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred. There was a sudden overwhelming sense of being watched, and all at once Jay was terrified.

  He backed away from the woman and the sad twisted creature in her arms, trying not to show any of the fear that was tearing at his guts inside. “Blaise, we’re getting the fuck out of here,” he said. He turned.

  Sascha stood behind the boy, his eyeless stare fixed on Jay. Ezili was there, too. He could see her body, full and lush. She was naked, and in the darkness, her eyes glowed red, brighter than the embers in the fire. She smiled at him and said nothing.

  Jay must have made some kind of noise, because Blaise turned around. He saw Sascha, but then his eyes went to Ezili and got big. He grinned, then gave a low hoot of approval that Jay knew he hadn’t learned from Tachyon. The boy had no idea of the shit they were in. “Sascha…” Jay began.

  “No,” Sascha replied. “Now it’s too late for talking.”

  A man with a club came sliding out of the darkness, his feet bare, silent as a shadow. He swung, missed, Jay danced aside, and made his gun with his fingers and popped him away. Someone leaped onto his back. He went down hard and rolled. Long fingernails raked across his face, clawing for his eyes. Jay caught the hands, pried them loose, tried to untangle himself. He got his right hand free just in time to pop off a small girl who was coming at him from the right, but by then the woman had sunk her teeth in the fleshy part of his left hand just beneath the thumb.

  He cried out. Blaise finally took his eyes off Ezili’s tits long enough to see what was going on. “Hey!” the boy called out.

  The woman worried at his thumb with her teeth and tried to kick him in the balls at the same time. Jay slapped her hard alongside the head, got his hand loose, and popped her right out from under him. Sascha shouted out, “Stop it! Leave them alone!”

  It was enough to freeze everyone for a second. Blaise was staring at Sascha with fierce concentration, holding him in the palm of his mind. Behind him, Jay saw the vast shadow of the Siamese quint lurch unsteadily to its feet and stumble forward. Oh Jesus, he thought. “Run!” he screamed at Blaise.

  He saw motion out of the corner of his eye, and whirled. The thing with the pale green eyes had emerged from the bushes and was gliding silently across the grass, five feet off the ground, like some obscene manta ray with a semihuman face. It was naked, its skin pale and pimpled. Male genitalia drooped from the center of its face beneath those hideous eyes. Jay fought to keep down his lunch as he sent it away, but behind it came others. The looming joker with flesh soft and dark as blood pudding, the boy with the ice pick, the human centipede skittering forward with knives in half his hands. They were all around him.

  He got rid of the ice pick when he saw the sad-voiced young woman coming at him, her baby lifted over her head like a weapon. It made him hesitate, only for a second, but it was enough.

  A dozen strong hands seized him from behind, the ground dropped away under his feet, and pain erupted everywhere.

  Sunday

  July 24, 1988

  3:00 A.M.

  HIS ARMS WERE ON fire.

  He didn’t remember waking up. He wasn’t sure he had. For a moment he thought he was dreaming, his nightmare come to haunt him once again, only this was a new part, after the cone-faced thing began to howl. He tried to open his eyes, and saw only darkness. The world had a damp, fetid smell. He couldn’t move his fingers. He could feel burning in his shoulders and his wrists, but otherwise his arms were numb. He kicked feebly, and his body began to twist. He was suspended somewhere, adrift above some vast black abyss.

  Far off in the darkness he heard coarse laughter and dim, whispering voices. The cone-faced things were talking about him, Jay thought. He remembered his name then; somehow that helped. He tried not to listen to the voices. They reminded him of the trees in his dream, whispering secrets, terrible secrets he did not want to hear.

  Then there were footsteps coming up behind him, and the fear rose in his throat. They were coming after him, and when he tried to run, his legs pumped uselessly against nothing.

  The blindfold was ripped off his face. Sudden light stung his eyes. Jay closed them, whimpering feebly. “Cut him down,” a familiar voice said, close at hand.

  Someone grunted. Against his best instincts, Jay opened his eyes a crack. His vision was blurred and painful. The room took shape around him. A basement, he
thought groggily. He was hanging from a pipe, swaying in the air, dangling by his arms. A human centipede advanced toward him, hands full of shiny metal, while a man with an eyeless face watched from below. Sascha, he thought, but when he tried to say the name, nothing came out.

  Then he was falling. His legs tangled under him, unable to support his weight, and he collapsed, his head hitting the damp stone beneath a solid crack as he fell. Jay groaned.

  “Give him another shot,” a distant voice said. “I don’t want to take any chances with him until we reach Ti Malice.”

  No, Jay tried to say. All he produced was a moan. Someone kicked at his broken rib, rolling him over with a foot. Then there was a bright light shining in his eyes, a sharp pain inside his elbow. After that he slept.

  11:00 A.M.

  Chrysalis smiled at him. Brennan thought it was strange to see her again, because he was pretty sure that she was dead. Or maybe she’d just been out of town.

  He smiled back tentatively. Now that she was back, how would he explain her to Jennifer? And vice versa? He decided to worry about it later and reached for her. They embraced and he pulled back to arms’ length to look at her. His smile froze.

  Chrysalis was deteriorating before his eyes. Her crystal flesh clouded with corruption and fell away from her face and body in rotten chunks. Blood ran in sluggish tears from her eyes, her breath whispered in a ghastly rattle from her laboring lungs. He held a corpse in his arms. He felt guilt tear angrily at him and with her last gasp she said, “Brennan,” and he awoke soaked with sweat and shaking from horror and anesthesia reaction.

  “How do you feel?” someone asked from his bedside.

  “Fine,” Brennan lied. “Where am I?”

  Brennan turned and looked at the speaker for the first time. He was a young man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. He looked like a cross between a surfer boy and a palomino pony. Dr.… Finn. That was his name.

  “The Jokertown Clinic,” Dr. Finn told him.

  Brennan nodded wearily.