A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  “You’ve got a new one?” Milo said, perfectly aware of which book he meant.

  “No! I mean the only book I’ve ever written—The Hut!—and the mess you made out of it!”

  Milo had heard quite enough nasty criticism of that particular film to last him a lifetime. He felt his anger flare but suppressed it. Why get into a shouting match?

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Billy, but let’s face facts.” He spread his hands in a consoling gesture. “It’s a dead issue. There’s nothing more to be done. The film has been shot, edited, released, and—”

  “—and withdrawn!” Franklin shouted. “Two weeks in general release and the theater owners sent it back! It’s not just a flop, it’s a catastrophe!”

  “The critics—killed it.”

  “Bullshit! The critics blasted it, just like they blasted other ‘flops’ like Flashdance and Top Gun and Ernest Goes to Camp. What killed it, Gherl, was word of mouth. Now I know why you wouldn’t screen it until a week before it opened: You knew you’d botched it!”

  “I had trouble with the final cut. I couldn’t—”

  “You couldn’t get it to make sense! As I walked out of that screening I kept telling myself that my negative feelings were due to all the things you’d cut out of my book, that maybe I was too close to it all and that the public would somehow find my story in your mass of pretensions. Then I heard a guy in his early twenties say, ‘What the hell was that all about?’ and his girlfriend say, ‘What a boring waste of time!’ and I knew it wasn’t just me.” Franklin’s long bony finger stabbed through the air. “It was you! You raped my book!”

  Milo had had just about enough of this. “You novelists are all alike!” he said with genuine disdain. “You do fine on the printed page so you think you’re experts at writing for the screen. But you’re not. You don’t know the first goddam thing about visual writing!”

  “You cut the heart out of my story! The Hut was about the nature of evil and how it can seduce even the strongest among us. The plot was like a house of cards, Gherl, built with my sweat. Your windbag script blew it all down! And after I saw the first draft of the script, you were suddenly unavailable for conference!”

  Milo recalled Franklin’s endless stream of nit-picking letters, his deluge of time-wasting phone calls. “I was busy, dammit! I was writer-director! The whole thing was on my shoulders!”

  “I warned you that the house of cards was falling due to the cuts you made. I mean, why did you remove all mention of voodoo and zombiism from the script? They were the two red herrings that held the plot together.”

  “Voodoo! Zombies! That’s old hat! Nobody would pay to see a voodoo movie!”

  “Then why set the movie in Haiti, f’Christsake? Might as well have been in Pasadena! And that monster you threw in at the end? Where in hell did you come up with that? I looked like the Incredible Hulk in drag! I spent years in research. I slaved to fill that book with terror and dread—all you brought to the screen were cheap shocks!”

  “If that’s your true opinion—and I disagree with it absolutely—you should be glad the film was a flop. No one will see it!”

  Franklin nodded slowly. “That gave me comfort for a while, until I realized that the movie isn’t dead. When it reaches the video stores and the cable services, tens of millions of people will see it—not because it’s good, but simply because it’s there and it’s something they’ve never heard of before and certainly have never seen. And they’ll be directing their rapt attention at your corruption of my story, and they’ll see ‘Based on the Novel by William Franklin’ and think that the pretentious, incomprehensible mishmash they’re watching represents my work. And that makes me mad, Gherl! Fucking-ay crazy mad!”

  The ferocity that flashed across Franklin’s face was truly frightening. Milo rushed to calm him. “Billy, look: Despite our artistic differences and despite the fact that The Hut will never turn a profit, you were paid well into six figures for the screen rights. What’s you’re beef?”

  Franklin seemed to shrink a little. His shoulders slumped and his voice softened. “I didn’t write it for money. I live off a trust fund that provides me with more than I can spend. The Hut was my first novel—maybe my only novel ever. I gave it everything. I don’t think I have any more in me.”

  “Of course you do!” Milo said, rising and moving around the desk toward the subdued writer. Here was his chance to ease Franklin out of here. “It’s just that you’ve never had to suffer for your art! You’ve had it too soft, too cushy for too long. Things came too easy on that first book. First time at bat you got a major studio film offer that actually made it to the screen. That hardly ever happens. Now you’ve got to prove it wasn’t just a fluke. You’ve got to get out there and slog away on that new book! Deprive yourself a little! Suffer!”

  “Suffer?” Franklin said, a weird light starting to glow in his eyes. “I should suffer?”

  “Yes!” Milo said, guiding him toward the office door. “All great artists suffer.”

  “You ever suffer, Milo Gherl?”

  “Of course.” Especially this morning, listening to you!

  “Look at this office. You don’t look like you’re suffering for what you did to The Hut.”

  “I did my suffering years ago. The anger you feel about The Hut is small change compared to the dues I’ve had to pay.” He finally had Franklin across the threshold. “I’m through suffering,” he said as he slammed the door and locked it.

  From the other side of the thick oak door he thought he heard Franklin say, “No, you’re not.”

  “Missing any personal items lately, mister?” said a voice.

  Milo opened his good eye and saw the big black guy standing over him, leaning on his mop handle. What was wrong with this old fart? What was his angle?

  “If you don’t leave me alone I’m gonna call—” He paused. “What do you mean, ‘personal items?’ ”

  “You know—clothing, nail clippings, a brush or comb that might hold some of your hair. That kinda stuff.”

  A chill swept over Milo’s skin like an icy breeze in July.

  The robbery!

  Such a bizarre thing—a pried-open window, a few cheap rings gone, his drawers and closets ransacked, an old pair of pajamas missing. And his toupee, the second-string hairpiece . . . gone. Who could figure it? But he had been shaken up enough to go out and buy a .38 for his night table.

  Milo laughed. This was so ludicrous. “You’re talking about a voodoo doll, aren’t you?”

  The old guy nodded. “It got other names, but that’ll do.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Name’s Andre but folks call me Andy. I got connections you gonna need.”

  “You need your head examined!”

  “Maybe. But that doctor said he was lookin’ for the wires that was cuttin’ into your legs and your arm but he couldn’t find them. That’s because the wires are somewheres else. They around the legs and arm of a doll somebody made on you.”

  Milo tried to laugh again but found he couldn’t. He managed a weak, “Bullshit.”

  “You believe me soon enough. And when you do, I take you to a Houngon who can help you out.”

  “Yeah,” Milo said. “Like you really care about me.”

  The old black showed his gap-tooth smile. “Oh, I won’t be doin’ you a favor, and neither will the Houngon. He’ll be wantin’ money for pullin’ you fat out the fire.”

  “And you’ll get a finder’s fee.”

  The smile broadened. “Thas right.”

  That made a little more sense to Milo, but still he wasn’t buying. “Forget it!”

  “I be around till three. I keep checkin’ up on you case you change you mind. I can get you out here when you want to go.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  Milo rolled on his side and closed his eyes. The old fart had some nerve trying to run that corny scam on him, and in a hospital yet! He’d report him, have him fired. This was no jok
e. He’d lost his eye already. He could be losing his feet, his hand! He needed top medical-center level care, not some voodoo mumbo-jumbo . . .

  . . . but no one seemed to know what was going on, and everyone seemed to think he’d put his own eye out. God, who could do something like that to himself? And his hand and his feet—the doc had said they were going to start rotting off if blood didn’t get flowing back into them. What on earth was happening to him?

  And what about that weird robbery last week? Only personal articles had been stolen. All the high-ticket stereo and video stuff had been left untouched.

  God, it couldn’t be voodoo, could it? Who’d even—

  Shit! Bill Franklin! He was an expert on it after all those years of research for The Hut. But he wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .

  Franklin’s faintly heard words echoed in Milo’s brain: No, you’re not.

  Agony suddenly lanced through Milo’s groin, doubling him over on the gurney. Gasping with the pain, he tore at the clumsy stupid nightshirt they’d dressed him in and pulled it up to his waist. He held back the scream that rose in his throat when he saw the thin red line running around the base of his penis. Instead, he called out a name.

  “Andy! Andy!”

  Milo coughed and peered through the dim little room. It smelled of dust and sweat and charcoal smoke and something else—something rancid. He wondered what the hell he was doing here. He knew if he had any sense he’d get out now, but he didn’t know where to go from here. He wasn’t even sure he could find his way home from here.

  The setting sun had been a bloody blob in Milo’s rearview mirror as he’d hunched over the steering wheel of his Mercedes and followed Andy’s rusty red pick-up into one of LA’s seamier districts. Andy had been true to his word: He’d spirited Milo out of the hospital, back to the house for some cash and some real clothes, then down to the garage near the Polo where his car was parked. After that it was on to Andy’s Houngon and maybe end this agony.

  It had to end soon. Milo’s feet were so swollen he was wearing old slippers. He had barely been able to turn the ignition key with his right hand. And his dick—God, his dick felt like it was going to explode!

  After what seemed like a ten-mile succession of left and right turns during which he saw not a single white face, they had pulled to a stop before a dilapidated storefront office. On the cracked glass was painted:

  M. Trieste

  Houngon

  Andy had stayed outside with the car while Milo went in.

  “Mr. Gherl?”

  Milo started at the sound and turned toward the voice. A balding, wizened old black, six-two at least, stood next to him. His face was a mass of wrinkles. He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and thin black tie.

  Milo heard his own voice quaver: “Yes. That’s me.”

  “You are the victim of the Bocor?” His voice was cultured, and accented in some strange way.

  Milo pushed back the sleeve of his shirt to expose his right wrist. “I don’t know what I’m the victim of, but Andy says you can help me. You’ve got to help me!”

  He stared at the patch over Milo’s eye. “May I see?”

  Milo leaned away from him. “Don’t touch that!” It had finally stopped hurting. He held his arm higher.

  M. Trieste examined Milo’s hand, tracing a cool dry finger around the clotted circumferential cut at the wrist. “This is all?”

  Milo showed him his legs, then reluctantly, opened his fly.

  “You have a powerful enemy in this Bocor,” M. Trieste said, finally. “But I can reverse the effects of his doll. It will cost you five hundred dollars. Do you have it with you?”

  Milo hesitated. “Let’s not be too hasty here. I want to see some results before I fork over any money.” He was hurting, but he wasn’t going to be a sucker for this clown.

  M. Trieste smiled. He had all his teeth. “I have no wish to steal from you, Mr. Gherl. I shall accept no money from you unless I can effect a cure. However, I do not wish to be cheated either. Do you have the money with you?”

  Milo nodded. “Yes.”

  “Very well.” M. Trieste struck a match and lit a candle on a table Milo hadn’t realized was there. “Please be seated,” he said and disappeared into the darkness.

  Milo complied and looked around. The wan candlelight picked up an odd assortment of objects around the room: African ceremonial masks hung side by side with crucifixes on the wall; a long conga drum sat in a corner to the right while a statue of the Virgin Mary, her small plaster foot trodding a writhing snake, occupied the one on his left. He wondered when the drums would start and the dancers appear. When would they begin chanting and daubing him with paint and splattering him with chicken blood? God, he must have been crazy to come here. Maybe the pain was affecting his mind. If he had any smarts he’d—

  “Hold out your wrist,” M. Trieste said, suddenly appearing in the candlelight opposite him. He held what looked like a plaster coffee mug in his hand. He was stirring its contents with a wooden stick.

  Milo held back. “What are you going to do?”

  “Help you, Mr. Gherl. You are the victim of a very traditional and particularly nasty form of voodoo. You have greatly angered a Bocor and he is using a powerful loa, via a doll, to lop off your hands and your feet and your manhood.”

  “My left hand’s okay,” Milo said, gratefully working the fingers in the air.

  “So I have noticed,” M. Trieste said with a frown. “It is odd for one extremity to be spared, but perhaps there is a certain symbolism at work here that we do not understand. No matter. The remedy is the same. Hold your arm out on the table.”

  Milo did as he was told. His swollen hand looked black in the candlelight. “Is . . . is this going to hurt?”

  “When the pressure is released, there will be considerable pain as the fresh blood rushes into the starved tissues.”

  That kind of pain Milo could handle. “Do it.”

  M. Trieste stirred the contents of the cup and lifted the wooden handle. Instead of the spoon he had expected, Milo saw that the man was holding a brush. It gleamed redly.

  Here comes the blood, he thought. But he didn’t care what was in the cup as long as it worked.

  “Andre told me about your problem before he brought you here. I made this up in advance. I will paint it on the constrictions and it will nullify the influence of the loa of the doll. After that, it will be up to you to make peace with this Bocor before he visits other afflictions on you.”

  “Sure, sure,” Milo said, thrusting his wrist toward M. Trieste. “Let’s just get on with it!”

  M. Trieste daubed the bloody solution onto the incision line. It beaded up like water on a freshly waxed car and slid off onto the table. Milo glanced up and saw a look of consternation flit across the wrinkled black face towering above him. He watched as the red stuff was applied again, only to run off as before.

  “Most unusual,” M. Trieste muttered as he tried a third time with no better luck. “I’ve never . . .” He put the cup down and began painting his own right hand with the solution. “This will do it. Hold up your hand.”

  As Milo raised his arm, M. Trieste encircled the wrist with his long dripping fingers and squeezed. There was an instant of heat, and then M. Trieste cried out. He released Milo’s wrist and dropped to his knees cradling his right hand against his breast.

  “The poisons!” he cried. “Oh, the poisons!”

  Milo trembled as he looked at his dusky hand. The bloody solution had run off as before. “What poisons?”

  “Between you and this Bocor! Get out of here!”

  “But the doll! You said you could—!”

  “There is no doll!” M. Trieste said. He turned away and retched. “There is no doll!”

  With his heart clattering against his chest wall, Milo pushed himself away from the table and staggered to the door. Andy was leaning on his truck at the curb.

  “Wassamatter?” he said straightening off the fender as
he saw Milo. “Didn’t he—?”

  “He’s a phony, just like you!” Milo screamed, letting his rage and fear focus on the old Black. “Just another goddam phony!”

  As Andy hurried into the store, Milo started up his Mercedes and roared down the street. He’d drive until he found a sign for one of the freeways. From there he could get home.

  And from home, he knew where he wanted to go . . . where he had to go.

  “Franklin! Where are you, Franklin?”

  Milo had finally found Bill Franklin’s home in the Hollywood Hills. Even though he knew the neighborhood fairly well, Milo had never been on this particular street, and so it had taken him a while to track it down. The lights had been on inside and the door had been unlocked. No one had answered his knocking, so he’d let himself in.

  “Franklin, goddamit!” he called, standing in the middle of the cathedral-ceilinged living room. His voice echoed off the stucco walls and hardwood floor. “Where are you?”

  In the ensuing silence, he heard a faint voice say, “Milo? Is that you?”

  Milo tensed. Where had that come from? “Yeah, It’s me! Where are you?”

  Again, ever so faintly: “Down here . . . in the basement!”

  Milo searched for the cellar door, found it, saw the lights ablaze from below, and began his descent. His slippered feet were completely numb now and he had to watch where he put them. It was as if his feet had been removed and replaced with giant sponges.

  “That you, Milo?” said a voice from somewhere around the corner from the stairwell. It was Franklin’s voice, but it sounded slurred, strained.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  As he neared the last step, he pulled the .38 from his pocket. He had picked it up t the house along with a pair of wirecutters on his way here. He had never fired it, and he didn’t expect to have to tonight. But it was good to know it was loaded and ready if he needed it. He tried to transfer it to his right hand but his numb, swollen fingers couldn’t keep hold of the grip. He kept it in his left and stepped onto the cellar floor—

  —and felt his foot start to roll away from him. Only by throwing himself against the wall and hugging it did he save himself from falling. He looked around the unfinished cellar. Bright, reflective objects were scattered all along the naked concrete floor. He sucked in a breath as he saw the hundreds of sharp curved angles of green glass poking up at the exposed ceiling beams. The looked like shattered wine bottles—big, green, four-liter wine bottles smashed all over the place. And in among the shards were scattered thousands of marbles.