Darker Than Noir

by Riley, R. Thomas; Zoot, Campbell; Chandler, Randy; Kauwe, Faith

When I woke the next afternoon to the sound of Obon drumming downtown, Kumiko was gone. I could still smell her on my sheets, my skin, and I could taste her on my lips and fingers. It had been a fitful night, full of fever dreams, punctuated by what I had thought was one true vision, Kumiko walking away toward my bathroom in the dim half-light before dawn. But now thinking back on it, that part had to be a dream, too: her legs, cascading down from her thin waist and hips, were skinny like a fox's all the way down to her feet.

  I snapped myself out of the fantasy, and dressed as fast as I could; walking past the bathroom mirror as I pulled on my shirt, I saw the dragon and its talisman eye. I pulled the Colt M1911 semi-automatic from the dresser's bottom drawer, and slid the pistol down into the front of my trousers. I buttoned the shirt, with its print of odori festival drummers on it, and left it untucked over my weapon.

  I ran the five blocks to the Miyako, my head swimming when it wasn't pounding. As I turned the corner, I saw Mai coming out the front entrance with Abe in tow, his head tied with a drummer's headband, a gift I was sure from old Ueda-san.

  I followed them to J-Town's open center, now cleared for construction, keeping an eye on the boy. I watched them while they watched the parade, the swirl of colorful kimonos sloshing with my thoughts. I tailed them as they hit the food booths and listened to the drummers, me grimacing and Abe bouncing to the taiko rhythm. As the sun began its late set, the dancers formed their circles, one nested inside the next, to begin the bon-odori dance. I kept to the outside, watching as Abe took his mother's hand, and they found their spot on the second outermost circle.

  The music, prerecorded and played over tinny speakers, but augmented by live drumming, started. The dancers rocked back and forth, slowly slashing their hands to the side and forward. Then they began to move forward in their circle. Mai's arms and hands were straight, formal, as if she had been raised and trained by a master long ago. Abe followed her movements, a step or two behind and off, like all the other children, to the delight of the spectators.

  They moved around a large wooden platform with the biggest drum atop it. I tried to move along the circle's outer edge to keep son and mother in sight, but I hit resistance at one point, and I watched them move counter-clockwise along the circle without me. As they crossed behind the drum, I was blinded by the low sun shining through the platform and into my eyes. I blinked, tried to shield my eyes but it was no use.

  My eyes went back to the dancers, scanning their circles for Mai, but I couldn't find her. The colors of the kimonos swirled to the music. Suddenly, the dancers all became one to me. I couldn't make out Mai; I couldn't find her.

  I looked low, in hopes of finding Abe. So many kids. Little girls in fancy kimonos. But there was Abe in his happi-coat, still doing his shoveling hand motions, right next to the thin calves of his mother. As they came closer, as their circle rotated toward me, my eyes traveled up the legs. Up the arms, not quite as stiff any more, not nearly as formal, and the long neck up to the face of Kumiko.

  Kumiko. Mai. No. Not Mai.

  Mae. Tomamo-no-mae. A kitsune or fox spirit. A trickster.

  I was trapped by the crowd and couldn't move along with the circle when it passed me once more. Again, Abe and his partner moved along and behind the platform, the sun again pouring into my eyes, filling my head with the last shaft of the setting sun's blinding light. I looked down to follow Abe, but I couldn't see his coat any longer, though I did see a pair of tiny feet running out of the circle, almost running in air, away from the platform, away from me. I looked up and saw him from behind, his hand clutched by a hand that was completely white on its palm and back of the forearm but looked to be ruddy, an almost rust-like color on the top of the hand and forearm.

  I began to push my way through the crowd, trying to keep them in sight, even going so far as to break from the outer bank of spectators and run through the circling dancers. I could hear the crowd screaming at me, but I couldn't stop, not without losing sight of the boy and the thing dragging him.

  The creature in the kimono was in a full run now, the boy lifted up off the ground, almost floating in the air. I was afraid they might take off and fly away, and I pulled my gun. But I wasn't as afraid as the boy, who was now howling like the coyotes outside Heart Mountain.

  They were heading for a series of booths with linen walls, lit from within by lanterns. I was gaining on them, screaming for it to leave him alone: “Hottoke-yo!” But it wouldn't stop, and I saw it enter the first booth.

  The night fell and everything slowed.

  The creature's silhouette on the linen wall began to change. Its head shortened, growing wider, the nose extending out from the face, becoming more of a snout with a pair of small ears growing up from the top of its flattening head. The hand leading away from its body lost its fingers, now just a paw. I raised my gun as I hit the booth.

  Inside, the boy was screaming, howling, his hand punctured by the claws of the kitsune.

  I shot past its head, and it froze. It turned slowly to me, the kimono slipping off its still erect body. The fox stood on its hind legs and stared at me.

  Its mouth moved, teeth bared like a spiteful smile, and I heard Kumiko's voice say, “Let us have the boy.” Its face began to change into Kumiko's, and the neck, her long beautiful neck, began to lose its red fur.

  “You're not Kumiko!” I screamed.

  “I can be whatever you want me to be,” it purred in Kumiko's voice, “Corporal.” It was now Tachibana's voice, gravelly, giving orders.

  “How about dead?” I shot Kumiko between the eyes.

  The kitsune-creature began to dissolve in the air, its mouth opening wider than any real creature's could. Pained, it screamed in a voice, not Kumiko's or Tachibana's, but something completely different: “You have no idea what you've done. Kenji is a—” Its jaw snapped shut then spasmed open again to the sound of laughter, growling male laughter. It rang in my ears.

  I ran over, picked up Abe, and covered his eyes as the creature vanished.

  ***

  The kid's hand had healed by the time I got him back to the Kansai and Sergeant Tachibana. Abe seemed genuinely happy to see the sergeant, hugging him and laughing, kissing him and holding the man's face in his tiny hands.

  Still holding the child, Tachibana-san bowed deeply to me. He thanked me. Begged for me to name some kind of price, some reward he could give me. The only thing I could come up with was to take care of the kid.

  “You don't have to worry about that. I will take care of him until the end of his days.”

  ***

  The papers said something about a shooting down in Little Tokyo during the annual Obon Festival, but there didn't seem to be any witnesses, save for some drunks who said they saw a fox running on its hind legs dragging a tiny Japanese boy. But as no one reported a boy missing, and no evidence was found, the police's official stance was that it was all a hoax. Sarge and I laughed about that when we bowed goodbye to each other at the airport gate.

  ***

  The next week, last week, I tried to telephone the sergeant to check on their flight and to make sure the boy was all right. The number had been disconnected. I tried an operator, but she couldn't connect me as she couldn't find a number listed for the name I gave her. I sent a telegram to the sergeant's last known address. I got no response for three days. Finally, Western Union delivered one this morning:

  yamura confused STOP no tachibana at address STOP tachibana died car crash two years STOP wife baby son went mainland last year STOP

  The telegram had a name and phone number with it, but what was the use? The kitsune had been protecting Abe. I had been fooled. I failed that boy, and now he was probably dead. Or worse.

  Tonight, as the sergeant's growling laughter rang in my ears again, I burned the yellow sheet of paper, rubbed the ashes of it—mixed with a little spit and blood—on the tattoo of the old Jew's talisman, went downtown to drink away the memories, and told my story to anyone who knows my name and isn't to
o afraid to listen.

  And I tell you the same:

  Kenji Tachibana is out there somewhere. Look out for him. If you see him, let him know Minoru Yamura is looking for him. When I find him, I'm going to kill him, and this time, the son of a bitch is going to stay dead.

  WINE AND SPIRITS:

  A TALE OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE

  AND THE SUPERNATURAL

  By Gregory L. Norris

  I. The House Whisperer

  “He’s missing a toe,” James Connelly said. “And he wants it back.”

  The answer elicited several snickers around the room, mostly from guests who didn’t live in the dormitory, those who hadn’t seen or felt the presence of the unwanted visitor in the small hours of the morning.

  “And he told you this personally?”

  James nodded. “Yup.”

  The other young man who was fast becoming the latest in a long line of adversaries knocked back a sip of the cheap keg beer in his red plastic cup. “What a crock of shit.”

  James shrugged. “I don’t make the news, dude, I just report it.” And then he, too, gulped down a chug of cold, bitter yeast urine. The beer was as potent as tap water, barely registering on his taste buds.

  The guy, the dude, was a proud peacock named Pete dressed in old work boots and jeans, a T-shirt bearing the names and colors of the college’s football team and a baseball cap with a trendy upscale clothier’s logo. A quarterback, likely. A tool who was none too happy that an unfamiliar peacock had captured the focus of so many of his hens. James had never been particularly adept at communicating with the living, but you didn’t need to be a toastmaster to figure out what was going on here.

  The dude snorted a cocky laugh, sipped. The angle of his arm raised the hem of his shirt, exposing a length of toned midriff, hairy down the center and around the belly button. The body language in the room was easy to read; even the residents of One Waverly Court who’d met Toeless Todd – the dead man’s name used to be Todd – in the bathrooms where they staggered to pee after too much cheap beer or to cry about the latest college travails had shelved their fears of the dorm’s resident ghost over visions of screwing the biggest man on campus.

  “Ladies, just be aware that cock-of-the-rock here’s got a handy-dandy little digital camera hidden in the football helmet beside his bed, and that any one or more of you he takes into the end zone tonight will be broadcast live on some shitty website called ‘Drunken College Whores dot-com.’”

  The color drained from Peacock Pete’s face, only to surge back from the neck on up in an angry shade of red. Yeah, add another fan to the James Connelly rogues gallery of enemies.

  The peacock screamed an insult, something about James’ mother, still very much alive, though James doubted they’d return to speaking terms even after she kicked the bucket. Then he shrieked, “Who told you, man? Who?”

  James guzzled the last of his drink. It was either swallow it or soon wear it.

  “Who?”

  The dancing peacock gave James a shove. James pushed back. “The dead guy, who used to live here until they chopped him up into bits, starting with his big toe which, the last time he saw it, had rolled under the chair in…”

  The inside of James’ skull exploded with pain. The drop to the floor passed slowly through a filter of red light and a cacophony of gasps. If only he’d gotten a decent buzz, he would have been spared the musty smell of the carpet, a taste that was like sucking on a handful of pocket change, and the sound of so many voices, one screaming for him to get up, get the fuck back up; most, just screaming.

  “Hell of a party trick,” James said around a humorless chuckle. “That whole chatting with the dead thing.”

  Toeless Todd, the dead man, lurked under the nearest bed and pointed toward the corner where the first of his severed body parts was rumored to have rolled.

  He tried running, but conversing with the dead has some strange drawbacks one might not expect. James was a New England Yankee, born and raised in a city on the Connecticut shore. He thought he could outrun the ability that was both a gift and a curse until, in San Diego, one of those lingering west coast souls screamed at him in Spanish nonstop for several hours – for sleeping in his bed at the motel. His encounters in Louisiana and Florida had been equally upsetting. At least in New England, he could relate and, more importantly, understand even the thickest of regional dialects.

  After six months on the road, he returned. Not to the same drab, depressing town, with its view of the power plant and untold rusting hulls scuttled in the estuary, where the sad voices of the ocean’s dead had so often called out to him, but a place not much better: a two-bedroom apartment with insufficient parking. The master bedroom had a large walk-in closet, hidden behind a barn door. And from that closet, his very first night there, out walked the ghost of Oliver.

  Peacock Pete had clouted him hard. The inside of James’ lip felt overly soft and shredded, like the pulp of fruit several days past prime. He’d swallowed enough blood to get nauseous and tasted the sour lemons of his gorge threatening to rise. The beer in his gut didn’t help. Coffee liqueur might, with a splash of milk to settle the tummy, his inner voice teased in its slightly sarcastic tone.

  “Get up!”

  “Not yet,” James said.

  On his elbows, he crawled across the carpet, over discolored patches and untold years of skin cells, sweat, and nail clippings embedded in the pile.

  “I don’t think you heard me.”

  The dude grabbed James by the shoulders of his shirt and hauled him back to his feet amid a chorus of popping stitches and a counterpoint of protests from more than one of the pissed-off peahens.

  James revolved, lightning-quick, and delivered a right jab to the meat of his adversary’s gut. The well-placed blow, however, didn’t complete the job. The peacock remained on his feet. James remedied that with a knee to the groin. The dude went down and didn’t get up.

  “I heard you, but I’m trying to listen to Toeless Todd, you dick.”

  “You’re so dead,” the peacock wheezed, clutching at his junk.

  “Like I haven’t heard that one before,” James chuckled, wiping his lip. “Feel free to yap some more in my ear when you are. Until then, shut the fuck up.”

  He pushed through the gaggle of agog peahens and shoved a folding chair out of the corner. The carpet was loose at the edges.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You asked for my help, I’m trying to give it to you, Helen,” James spat.

  Peacock Pete moaned. Several peahens made their sudden disgust with James known in a slur of insults and drunken euphemisms. James tugged the carpet free and yanked at the padding, revealing scuffed hardwood floor beneath, flush with the wall.

  “Son of a bitch,” James said. “It’s right under there.”

  “What is?”

  James stood and took aim with the heel of his foot. The first two stomps proved ineffective. The third shattered the edge of the wooden floor.

  “Jesus Christ, James,” Helen said. “What the hell-?”

  James leaned down and reached through the gap. Jagged splinters raked the back of his hand. The phantom chill of reaching into yet one more dark, abandoned space – his thousandth? – sent a shiver slithering down his spine. The foul taste on his tongue worsened after his fingers found the object. Cold, slick, it had the texture of a tide-smoothed stone. James withdrew his hand. The splinters ripped at his flesh.

  “Here,” he said, “The reason why so many of you have been seeing a man with a limp prowling around this chicken coop at night.”

  He tossed it onto the prostrate form of the quarterback, still clutching at his gonads. The object bounced off the dude’s stomach and onto the floor. The crowd parted around it. Somebody screamed again, setting the others off.

  It was a man’s severed, desiccated big toe.

  II. The Ghosts of Shit-faced Past

  “Anyway, this is how it all started. The old man played on the Rocky Cl
ub’s baseball team, and their home field was a shitty patch of dirt littered with dog turds on the banks of the Spigot River, in Haviland. I was five or six, and the day in question was a muggy June motherfucker. So friggin’ humid, I thought I was gonna shrivel up and die. There was a water bubbler behind home plate, but it was busted, and by the third inning even the Spigot was looking tasty. I’d never been so thirsty. I tell you that sugar diabetes runs in the blood? Always told us that we had to watch out for being thirsty, and pissing our brains out. I was dying of thirst, convinced I was dying of the sugar dia-beasties, which is what I used to think it was called. The shit that goes through your brain when you’re a kid, before society and the American government beat the imagination out of you.

  “My dad – I haven’t seen him since I was ten – was warming the pine between innings. I asked him if I could get a drink or an ice cream from the ice cream truck. Anything, even a glass of water, because I was seriously dying of thirst. That’s how I put it. Dying.

  “Cheap fuck says no, tells me here, have some of this, and hands me the open can of beer he’s been swigging from. Guess it was some big joke to him and his buddies, like giving a sip of beer to the family dog. Ha ha. Five or six, I was…dying of thirst. So I suck down this huge sip of beer and, instead of quenching my thirst, it was like I’d guzzled battery acid. The shit shot out of my nose. Don’t think I even swallowed that much down, but for the rest of the game, I was doubled over, puking my guts out until my throat was raw and I thought I was gonna pass out. I didn’t want anything to drink after that. Thanks, dad. I raise my glass to you, wherever you are, you miserable beer-drinking, cube steak-eating, Oldsmobile-driving, pro wrestling-watching, Thanksgiving-fart useless excuse for a two-headed mutant sperm donor…

  “Oh, tell you how I really feel? Ha!”