Even More Nasty Stories

by Brian McNaughton

  “Bastard bastard bastard!” he screamed, kicking me in the back as if trying to squash a bug to paste. “You got me to touch your goddamn frogspawn jackoff rag—"

  He stopped kicking me. I tried to stop my sobbing and groaning so I could hear what he was saying, though his words were strangely muffled. It sounded as if he were choking. Was it too much to hope that he was dying of apoplexy?

  I managed to twist my head around. I couldn't imagine what was happening to him. Most of his face was covered by a wet, black cloth, and he was apparently standing a foot off the floor, his heavy-duty oxfords and white tube-socks jerking spasmodically.

  But it was no cloth that covered his face. It was the huge, webbed hand of the dark figure that loomed behind him, the Deep One I had revived.

  “Praise Mother Hydra!” I sobbed.

  “Praise her name!” a rich, deep, croaking voice responded.

  “'

  Sokay, sweetie,” I slurred, dumping Ondine Gilman into a lobby chair of the hotel that, most inaccurately, bore her name. “Jus’ get us a room, okay?"

  “Wha...? Where?"

  I leaned forward and, under the pretext of giving her a kiss, pressed her carotid arteries until she lost consciousness again. After changing my modus operandi in the Northwest, I had learned that this was every bit as effective as an ice-cream locker for draining the will of baptismal candidates.

  “Excuse me, Sir! Just what—oh. It's Mr. Smith, isn't it?"

  “Bob. It's good ol’ Bob,” I said, steering a wayward course for the desk and the clerk I had seen before, the one who had used a bandanna to pick up my bag. He was still wearing his Munch necktie. The image was a deliberate slur against my people.

  “What's going on?"

  “Celebrash. Celebration. We're outta that damn crazy-house."

  “I can see that. What's going on outside, I meant."

  I pretended to hear the sirens for the first time. And there were indeed screams, too.

  “They're celebratin', I guess.” I heard a burst of automatic gunfire.

  “God!” he cried, starting from behind the desk.

  “Hey, wait. Need a room for me and my sweetie."

  “I can't rent you a room, you're drunk. And I'm closing."

  “Then gimme my bag,” I said. “Left my bag, remember?"

  “Oh. Sure. Then will you go?"

  “Drunk, huh?"

  “Where am I?” Ondine cried.

  “'Sokay, honey."

  He dumped my bag on the counter, forgetting to protect his precious hand from my contagion in his confused haste. He fretted and fussed as I opened it, and he grew even more flustered at another burst of automatic fire in the distance.

  “I'm not really drunk,” I said clearly as I pulled the nine-millimeter Browning out of the bag and jacked a Black Talon round into the chamber.

  “What?"

  “I'm just very different from you, that's all."

  I put the bullet right through the Screamer's bald, distorted head and through the clerk's breastbone.

  “I'm coming, dear,” I told Ondine, and hurried over to deprive her simian brain of yet more oxygen.

  I was afraid she might not be able to understand what I was doing after I had stripped her and tied her to the bed in the room I had assigned us, but she came around as good as new. Nobody would have paid attention to her screams and curses over the similar noises in Town Square.

  I took all the time I wanted to amuse myself, but it surprised me when dawn broke while I was still thrusting into her. I turned and saw that it was a dawn of floodlights, powerful floodlights from the section of town sealed off by razor-wire. The gunfire had become constant, but it seemed as if fewer guns were in use.

  “You fucking bastard!” Ondine sobbed.

  “You got part of that right,” I grunted, “but I'm the one who's legitimate, remember?"

  “Freak!"

  I'd had enough of her and her filthy mouth. I pulled out and rummaged among my clothing for the stones. Her screams found surprising new energy as I inserted them in the secret places, but I managed to ignore her as I recited the words. I'm not sure if the words and the procedure are exactly right, since Grandma explained them fully only at the very last, when she had passed over and was in a fearful hurry to rejoin her people, but I have always used them.

  I suspect that any human being who reads this account may think that my baptism of forty-eight women between 1982, the year Grandma passed over, and 1984 was somehow excessive. On the contrary, it was based on an exact calculation of the yearly baptisms Grandma was prevented from performing while she was interned in Oklahoma (four), and while she was confined in the nursing-home (forty-four). Despite all the hard work and laborious planning involved, to say nothing of the danger, I wanted to complete Grandma's hecatomb and ensure that she was granted full honor among the Deep Ones as quickly as possible. Don't you think she had suffered long enough and waited long enough already? If you still believe someone should be censured for upsetting the public with such a concentrated flurry of “criminal” activity, you might look to President Herbert Hoover, whose agents disrupted her life and prevented the free exercise of her religion, or to Sidney Newman, my grandfather, who did the same.

  It was my turn to scream as the door opened. I recoiled from the figure in black that stood there, but then I saw that it was Old Lady Waite.

  “I don't know what you did, Bob,” she said admiringly, “but you sure stirred up the Host of the Sea. However,” she added as she set a crocheted bag on the bedside table and withdrew a large black book and a butcher-knife, “that's not really the way to go about this business.” To Ondine she said, “Hush, now, child, this won't take much longer at all. To baptize your soul we have to separate it from your body. Take heart from the fact that your suffering won't be wasted. Even now your pain and shame are floating out like incense to feed those whose glory you can't even begin to comprehend."

  While I watched and listened, she showed me exactly how it should be done.

  The flapping roar of helicopters deafened us as we ran through the marsh. They raced toward us, flying barely higher than the reeds. I thought this was the end, but they passed right over us to the town, where they blasted the beach with rockets and cannon-fire.

  “They're killing them!” I cried.

  “I doubt it,” Old Lady Waite said. “The Deep Ones are not stupid, you know. They wanted to destroy the Facility and give the boys in the back room something to chew on, and they've done it. They're long gone by now, taking their dead with them. You'll read in the papers tomorrow how some foreign fishermen got out of line when they thought they saw a sea monster, or maybe a mermaid, and how the dumb state troopers called in an air strike. There's no fun on earth like reading the papers, if you know what to look for."

  Whatever the papers might say, our position was untenable. Dr. Saltonstall knew what I'd done in the Northwest, he hadn't just been on a fishing expedition, and he couldn't be the only one who knew. I had made no attempt to hide the remains of Ondine and the hotel clerk. As for Old Lady Waite, she was sure that they would come hunting for any lingering Dagonites in Innsmouth, whatever the papers might say, with her at the head of their list.

  She had kept a small sloop ready for just such an emergency, and now it ghosted through the black creek under a small jib while she steered it expertly.

  “Where are we going?"

  “You mentioned Fiji. It's nice there. There's an island where the Deep Ones mix freely with the people, just like they used to do in Innsmouth. Just like they'll do again here when this blows over and Ramon does what I told him."

  “We're going to ... to the South Pacific in this?"

  “Not we. I'll be passing over before very long at all.” She laughed at the horror on my face. “What's the matter, can't you swim?"

  “Yes, of course, but—"

  “Don't worry. I'll make sure you know how to sail it before I pass over. Then I'll stick by you, or maybe our fr
iends will."

  Old Lady Waite—but that was merely the name of her larval shell, soon to be discarded as she assumed the glorious form that I came to know and love, in every sense of those words, as Pth'th-l'yl-l'yth.

  It was the magnificent soul of that companion and lover-to-be who had guided me, and who now gestured at the black water. I saw nothing at first, then a glow in the depths, a trail of phosphorescence to one side of the boat. A second followed on the other side. Large, submarine creatures escorted us.

  * * *

  Business Image

  One day Seymour decided to stay home and send me to work. I did not like this at all. I had my own life to live when he wasn't peering at me and trying to convince himself that he looked like Richard Gere.

  “It's time you made yourself useful,” he said.

  “You'll be sorry,” I said, but only because he expected it. I'm like that.

  “Ha! Au contraire, mon semblable, I'll be bubbling over with joy. Alone at last!"

  I'd show him. I'd rob a bank. He would be blamed. I'd tear the clothes off the first pretty woman I saw. The one in the elevator wasn't bad, but she looked at me so strangely that I forgot my plan. She left in a hurry.

  So did I. There's a big mirror in the lobby, and I felt compelled to reach it in time to confront Seymour. The nitwit always paused to check his hair and necktie and make sure his fly was zipped. I was well into my routine before I realized he wasn't there. Or, I should say, that I wasn't.

  Out in the street, my compulsion persisted. I was dragged from one shop-window to the next by the groundless fear that Seymour might miss me. Where I come from, everyone hurries along like that, always anticipating the next encounter. Things were different here. I kept colliding with strangers, and I attracted more strange looks that I did my best to return.

  The subway was a different nightmare from the one I was used to. Normally surrounded by rushing walls in a dark world and in a fragmented state, I was forced to stand inside the car among garishly colored passengers. Unlike the usual monochrome crowd, they stared. I tried fragmenting myself, but it didn't work.

  I had ignored the puzzling signs. When at last I deciphered one, I realized that I was was going uptown. I hurried off, stumbling, colliding, returning strange looks. Like those bizarre signs, the street-plan had to be reversed to be understood. Existence here was a constant struggle to falsify the evidence of my eyes.

  I had never seen Dick, Seymour's boss, but I assumed that was who yelled at me for being late. “The subway, Dick, you know the subway."

  “No, Seymour, I don't. The subway is for losers, and maybe that's your problem. And stop doing that!"

  He didn't explain. I hurried to the watercooler where Seymour always saw me. It was cool and quiet in there. But I wasn't in there, of course, I was out here amid glaring fluorescence and clacking machines.

  I went to the woman I took to be Alice, Seymour's secretary, to get the contracts Dick was fretting about. She was impossible. “Why are you doing this to me, Mr. Warren?"

  “I'm not—” But she had already fled in tears.

  I went to look for the contracts myself, but Dick was at the door. “What the hell's wrong with you, Seymour?"

  His face was red and twisted, like mine. The angry jerk of my hand was synchronized with his.

  “Are you making fun of me?” he demanded, making a fist, as did I—and then I caught on. I was Seymour's reflection, not his, not Alice's, not the reflection of all those staring loons in the subway! It was very hard, since Dick wasn't doing it, but I laughed.

  “I'm getting out of this nuthouse,” I said.

  “You're damned right you—Seymour! No!"

  I dashed for the window, intending to force myself back into my own world through the glass. Unfortunately, my world wasn't there. Beyond the glass gaped a twenty-story drop to the street.

  Well. As you must know, since I'm alive to tell this, that was when I woke up. It was one of those dreams we compose to cheat the alarm clock. Utterly realistic, correct in all details, but lasting no more than—

  Good God! If the clock was right, I had overslept by two hours. I dialed direct to Dick's office.

  “Dick, this is Seymour, I—"

  “This is who?"

  “Yeah, I overslept, don't rub it in. Those contracts—"

  “That's a good imitation, pal. If you're a friend of Seymour's—"

  “I am Seymour!"

  “I don't have time for this. Seymour took a dive through his window two minutes ago. My condolences."

  I was in no hurry to get up, because the first thing I would see was the mirror over my dresser. At last I forced myself.

  The mirror was quite empty.

  * * *

  Vision

  After Don Diego shot the Indian, he rearmed his crossbow and passed it to me.

  “Keep your eyes on these cattle,” he said.

  No order should have been easier to follow, given such “cattle” as the cacique's women, wearing only the skimpy aprons that satisfied their undemanding notion of modesty; but Don Diego distracted me by gouging out our victim's eyes.

  At last obeying the order, I was horrified to be greeted by smiles. I couldn't begin to imagine what they were thinking. I would never forget the sight of the caponized boys they fattened in cages for feasts. Perhaps they viewed the murder and mutilation of their lord as jolly sport.

  “See?” Don Diego held out the eyes on his palm.

  As we had been told, they were not eyes at all, but gemstones.

  “What do you suppose they're worth?” I asked disingenuously.

  "Worth?" he laughed. “This man had no eyes, but he saw better than any cat or eagle. He saw through walls, even through the walls that separate us from heaven and hell. What is it worth to be king? To be pope? To be God?"

  I crossed myself. “He was a king, yes, of a pimple on the world's backside."

  “Only, dear Ricardo, because he lacked imagination, daring and ruthlessness. Since when have these ever been Castilian deficiencies? Now you must do what we spoke of."

  “I cannot."

  He smiled the very smile I had expected. “This is why I am a captain, and you are not. I know your weaknesses, and you shall be my foremost servant when I rule the world. Take these now, and guard them."

  Though he lacked true imagination, Don Diego's daring and ruthlessness had no like. He took a deep breath and pressed his thumbs to his own eyes. In one, decisive stroke he gouged them out. Only a suppressed sob marked the pain that even I felt as I watched.

  “The stones,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “Quickly!"

  “Imagination, ruthlessness and daring are futile, my captain,” I said, “when they are diluted by trust."

  I raised the crossbow and shot him. The women giggled as the show vaulted beyond even savage expectations.

  Patting bare rumps at random, I strode onto the beach to feast my eyes on a vast sea displaying ten distinct shades of green, with at least ten more discernible in the conical islands that wandered off to the kingdom of the clouds. Directly before me, I focused on the face of the cacique's loveliest wife. In no one place had I seen so much evidence of God's grandeur, and I assured the Blessed Virgin that I had no designs whatever on His prerogatives.

  My gallant captain had set the standard to which I must rise, and I did.

  The pain—I would describe it, but it was blotted out by the agony in my manly parts as a dainty knee, driven by primitive strength, crushed soft flesh against bone. As I fell to my knees a club tore off my helmet and perfected my paralysis. I couldn't resist when the gems were taken from my very hand.

  Men's hands gripped me and hauled me to my feet. I was propelled through a gale of stones, sticks, sand and spit, while the taunts and jeers reached a level of noise that would have got these barbarians evicted from hell itself. Even if they could have understood my impassioned pleas and explanations, no one could have heard them. It gave me some small comfort to change my t
ack and tell the scoundrels I should have begun the day by crucifying every last one of them, an omission that the Admiral of the Ocean Sea would himself set right.

  No insult or indignity was neglected as I was stripped, then kicked into a place of confinement, where I lost consciousness.

  It might have been noon or midnight when I woke, how could I know? Female voices murmured around me. Exploring by touch, I found food, ample food, and I surprised myself by eating ravenously. The Arawaks are impenetrable creatures, driven by whim and superstition. Could they not have changed their minds and decided to treat me once more as a pampered guest?

  I called out, and the voices that responded seemed not at all hostile. Exploring further, I learned that I was in a wooden cage. It took almost no time at all to grasp that the soft voices came from the other cages around me, the fattening-cages of the caponized boys.

  * * *

  Getting Around

  Tom Ganley wheeled himself down the tiny living room to the glass end-wall that made him feel less like a proud homeowner than an exhibit. He tried to keep the drapes drawn, but Jean would always open them. “To let the Good Lord's sun shine in,” she explained, but the binoculars she kept handy gave away her true reason.

  Parting the drapes, he faced a bedazzlement of headlights on the noisy pickup that had pulled in beside his car. The depth of black lacquer on the hood suggested that the racket was intentional, not due to careless maintenance. The driver revved up until the tin walls of Tom's manufactured home buzzed and rattled as if it strove to levitate.

  “Your friends are here.” No need to raise his voice to be heard in the bathroom.

  “I'll just be a sec, hon,” Jean called back. “There's Pepsi in the fridge."

  He tried to get to the door first, but the caller beat him to it and clattered a brisk tattoo with his ring.

  “Hello, Wick. I thought for a minute Rommel had come back."

  Albert Wicklow punished his wad of gum with big white teeth while he grinned. “Just tuned her up. Told Jean I'd take a look at your car."