A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Be careful,” said Franklin’s voice. “The basement’s mined.” The voice was there, but Franklin was nowhere in sight.

  “Where the hell are you, Franklin?”

  “Back here in the bathroom. I thought you’d never get here.”

  Milo began to move toward the rear of the cellar where brighter light poured from an open door. He slid his slippered feet slowly along the floor, pushing the green glass spears ahead of him, rolling the marbles out of the way.

  “I’ve come for the doll, Franklin.”

  Milo heard a hollow laugh. “Doll? What doll, Milo? There’s just me and you, ol’ buddy.”

  Milo shuffled around the corner into view of the bathroom. And froze. The gun dropped from his fingers and further shattered some of the glass at his feet. “Oh, my God, Franklin! Oh, my God!”

  William Franklin sat on the toilet wearing Milo’s rings, his old slippers, his stolen pajamas, and his other hairpiece. His left eye was patched and his feet and his right hand were as black and swollen as Milo’s. There was a maniacal look in his remaining eye as he grinned drunkenly and sipped from a four-liter green-glass bottle of white wine. The cuts in his flesh were identical to Milo’s except that a short length of twisted copper wire protruded from each. A screwdriver and a pair of pliers lay in his lap.

  M. Trieste’s parting words screamed through his brain: There is no doll!

  “See?” Franklin said in a slurred voice. “You said I had to suffer.”

  Milo wanted to be sick. “Christ! What have you done?”

  “I decided to suffer. But I didn’t think I should suffer alone. So I brought you along for company. Sure took you long enough to figure it out.”

  Milo bent and picked up the pistol. His left hand wavered and trembled as he pointed it at Franklin. “You . . . you . . .” He couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Franklin casually tossed the wine bottle out onto the floor where it shattered and added to the spikes of glass. Then he pulled open the pajama top. “Right here, Milo, old buddy!” he said, pointing to his heart. “Do you really think you want to put a slug into me?”

  Milo thought about that. It might be like putting a bullet into his own heart. He felt his arm drop. “Why . . . how . . . I don’t deserve . . .”

  Franklin closed his eye and grimaced. He looked as if he were about to cry. “I know,” he said. “It’s gone too far. Maybe you really don’t deserve all this. I’ve always known I was a little bit crazy, but maybe I’m a lot crazier than I ever thought I was.”

  “Then for God’s sake, man, loosen the wires!”

  “No!” Franklin’s eye snapped open. The madness was still there. “I entrusted my work to you. That’s a sacred trust. You were responsible for The Hut’s integrity when you took on the job of adapting it to the screen.”

  “But I’m an artist, too!” Why was he arguing with this nut? He slipped the pistol into his front pocket and reached around back for the wire cutters.

  “All the more reason to respect another man’s work! You didn’t own it—it was only on loan to you!”

  “The contract—”

  “Means nothing! You had a moral obligation to protect my work, one artist to another.”

  “You’re over-reacting!”

  “Am I? Imagine yourself a parent who has sent his only child to a reputable nursery school only to learn that the child has been raped by the faculty—then you will understand some of what I feel! I’ve come to see it as my sacred duty to see to it that you don’t molest anyone else’s work!”

  Enough of this bullshit! If Franklin wouldn’t loosen the wires, Milo would cut them off! He pulled the wire cutters from his rear pocket and began to shuffle toward Franklin, sweeping the marbles and daggers of glass ahead of him.

  “Stay back!” Franklin cried. He grabbed the pliers and pushed them down toward his lap, grinning maliciously. “Didn’t know I was left-handed, did you?” He twisted something.

  Searing pain knifed into Milo’s groin. He doubled over but kept moving toward Franklin. Less than a dozen feet to go. If he could just—

  He saw Franklin drop the pliers and pick up the screwdriver, saw him raise it toward his right eye, the good eye. Milo screamed.

  “NOOOOO!”

  And then agony exploded in his eye, in his head, robbing him of the light, sending him reeling back in sudden impenetrable blackness. As he felt his feet roll across the marbles, he reached out wildly. His legs slid from under him and despite the most desperate flailings and contortions, he found nothing to grasp on the way down but empty air.

  MUSCLES

  Jay was dry, his mind a vast open plain, barren of the slightest sprig of an idea. It worried him no little bit.

  He finished his coffee and sandwich at his desk, then sat there tapping a pencil on his blotter. He looked around the empty office. This was getting serious. He needed a lead story for next week’s edition and he was completely blank.

  He picked up the current issue of The Light lying open on his desk, exposing the weekly eye injury on page three. That was one of his rules: Every issue had to have an eye injury on page three, preferably with a photo. Page five was reserved for the weekly UFO story. The dependable appearance of features like those kept the regulars coming back week after week. But it was page one that caught the impulse buyers, and they were the gravy. He closed it over and scanned the front page.

  FOUND IN SIBERIA!

  TWO-HEADED BABY SPEAKS

  ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN!

  There followed an eyewitness account of the left head speaking Russian and the right answering in English—talk about internationalism!—along with a photo of a two-headed baby from the freak file.

  Jay frowned. Another of his rules was that freaks were a last resort for the front page. The presence one in this week’s lead was testimony to the aridity of his current dry spell. But you had to go for the gross when you were competing against something as juicy as the Profumo scandal in the dailies.

  He got up and walked around the tiny office, stopping before the front page of the March 15, 1959 issue framed on the wall. He’d only just started at The Light then, but he’d made his mark with that one. Even today they still considered it a masterpiece.

  SECRET VATICAN PAPERS REVEAL:

  RICHIE VALENS WOULD

  HAVE BEEN NEXT POPE!

  He shook his head at the memory. Boy, had that ever sold papers. The text had been the usual bullshit about secret information leaked by a deep contact who would talk only to The Light. A source in a place like the Vatican was a safe bet because the Vatican was so secretive anyway and naturally would be expected to deny the story. Of course, the tried-and true standby was placing the source behind the Iron Curtain. No way anyone could prove you right or wrong when the story came from Siberia.

  Look at me, he thought. Standing here reminiscing about 1959 like it was the good old days. Hell, it was only four years ago.

  He shook his head. Acting like a has-been at thirty.

  He needed some air, a walk, a change of scenery. Anything but these same old lousy walls.

  He pulled on his coat and headed for the elevator. He knew where he wanted to go.

  Ah, sleaze. Something in the air here in Times Square did something for Jay. Not any one particular thing. The amalgam stimulated him—a benny for his soul. And the Square looked especially sleazy today, buffeted by a chill wind under a low gray sky that promised rain or snow or a mix.

  He wandered past the Tango Palace.

  Continuous Dancing from 2 P.M. to 4 A.M.

  To the Type of Music You Love

  Presenting Beautiful Girls to Dance With

  Then came the Square Theater showing a double bill of The Immoral Mr. Teas and Wild Women of Wongo, past the Garden Theatre with a double of B-O-I-N-N-N-G! and Goldilocks and the Three Bares, past Hubert’s Museum and Flea Circus.

  He’d been to the Tango Palace a number of times—through the plain door and up the stairs to where the music
was not the type he loved and the women not the kind he cared to dance with—and had seen the movies twice each. He knew the attractions of Hubert’s by heart.

  But he never got tired of the aura of the Square. The regulars here were living by their wits on the edge of the law, on the far side of truth, justice, and the American way. The skells, the sky-grifters, the street-hawkers, the streetwalkers all worked as hard at their trades as any straight, but they didn’t want it straight. They wanted it their way. Jay could not deny a feeling of kinship.

  Lighted headlines crawled around the Times Building—something about Kennedy and Khrushchev—while a guy in cowboy boots and a Stetson gave Jay the eye. He ignored both. A lot of women had told him he looked like Anthony Perkins and maybe it was true. Tall, very slim, dark brown hair and an angular face—a look useful in attracting women, but had its drawbacks in that it attracted certain men too. Not so popular, though, a couple of years ago when Psycho was such a hit.

  Jay crossed the street and slowed when he came to Harold’s Mondo Emporium where a line of about half a dozen guys was filing past the ticket window.

  Harold’s Mondo was a relative newcomer on the Square, a smaller, poor man’s version of Hubert’s Museum and Flea Circus. Hubert’s had been on the Square since 1929. Ernie Rawson had opened up Harold’s just last year. He’d sounded like he was going under when Jay had spoken to him a couple of weeks ago. Now he was doing gangbusters with the lunchtime crowd.

  Jay showed his press card to the ticket girl and wandered inside to look around. Same old junk as Hubert’s: a taxidermied two-headed cow, a snake charmer, a belly dancer, pickled punks, the trade’s charming name for bottled embryos—25 bucks apiece from Del Rio, Texas. He came to a closed-off section with a separate admission. If Jay remembered correctly, the last time he was in it had housed “Sexology” lectures with visual aids by a professor from the Sorbonne. Uh-huh. Now it said simply, “Supergirl.” That was where everyone was going.

  Jay spotted Ernie and sneaked up behind him.

  “I’m from DC Comics,” he said in a gruff voice. “Where can I find the owner of this establishment?’

  Ernie whirled, wide-eyed, then laughed, “Jay! How goes it?”

  He was a plump, stubby man with a plump, stubby cigar jammed into a corner of his mouth. And he was grinning like an idiot.

  “You look like a man who just won the Irish Sweepstakes, Ernie. What’s going on?”

  “Great new attraction. Wanna see?”

  Jay tried to appear disinterested, but he’d been hoping for an invitation.

  “All right. Maybe there’s a story in her.

  “Is there ever! See her first, then I’ll tell ya.”

  Jay followed Ernie into the room and stood in the back and watched this Supergirl. She had curly red hair, fair, lightly freckled skin, and she was built—not just in her D-cup halter, but in her shoulders, arms, and legs.

  Muscles.

  The girl was loaded with them. And her skimpy two-piece Supergirl costume showed them all. Not bulging bodybuilder-type muscles, but thick sleek cords running under skin. She’d oiled up like the Mr. Universe guys so the light played off all the highlights when she flexed. She was good, too. Knew how to work the crowd. She’d smile, banter, do her lifts, bend her bars. She’d been around. It could have all been an elaborate scam, but the guys in the crowd didn’t seem to mind. Just looking at her was worth the ticket price.

  “Here comes the blow-off,” Ernie said. “Wait’ll ya see this!”

  Turned out to be a good blow-off. Supergirl pulled a drape off a pressing bench, got two medium-sized volunteers from the audience and had them sit on each end of an iron bar racked over the bench. When they were set, she lay back—with her crotch toward the audience, natch—and bench-pressed the two guys. As the audience went wild, Ernie pulled Jay outside.

  “She terrif or what?”

  “She’s good, yeah, but not much of a story in a strong-woman act.”

  “Don’t count on that. Wait’ll ya hear about her gettin raped tree years ago.”

  “Raped?” This was getting interesting now. Jay couldn’t imagine anyone doing anything to that lady without her permission. “Who did it—Man Mountain Dean?”

  “A ghost, she says. An anyways, she weren’t muscled-up back then. Maybe ya seen her at Hubert’s. She was the snake dancer back in sixty.”

  “Tell you the truth, Ernie, I didn’t get much of a look at her face.”

  Those muscles had fascinated him. He’d never seen anything like them on a woman before . . . the way they moved under her skin . . .

  “You an evybody else.”

  “But what’s this about a ghost raping her?”

  “What she said back then. Hollered bout it to the cops, then clammed up soon as the papers come sniffin. Quit her job an disappeared. Coupla weeks ago she shows up in my office wit all these muscles and this act. I mean, is she dynamite or what? And if you can give me some good press on her, I can up the ticket price and still be packin em in. And should that come to fruitition, I’d be willing to maybe find a way to—”

  Jay held up a hand. “Don’t say it, Ernie. Either the story’s worth writing or it’s not.”

  Had to keep an eye on the journalistic integrity.

  “Okay, okay. Just meet her an talk t’her and see whatcha think.”

  “Will do. Which way to the dressing room?”

  Jay was looking forward to this.

  Now that she was swathed in a terry-cloth bathrobe, Jay realized she was kind of pretty. Not beautiful, but pretty in a girlish, nice-smile way. Pushing thirty, maybe a little hard around the edges, but the trace of vulnerability in those blue eyes appealed to Jay. He wanted to get to know her.

  “This is Jay,” Ernie said. “He’s a reporter. Wants a few woids.”

  She gave Jay an appraising look. “Long as it’s only words he wants, otherwise the two of you can take off.”

  Jay smiled at her. “Just words, I assure you, Miss . . .” He curved the end of the word up into a question.

  “Hansen.” She returned the smile. “Olivia Hansen. You can call me Liv.”

  She seemed interested. Maybe she liked skinny guys.

  “I wancha to give Jay a good story, Liv,” Ernie said. “About the rape an evyting.”

  Suddenly the smile disappeared. Liv’s expression became fierce. She lifted Ernie off the floor by his lapels and tossed him against the wall.

  “I told you never to mention that!” she shouted as Ernie bounced off the wall and cowered away from her. “Didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, Liv, but—”

  “No buts!” She turned toward Jay. “What paper you from?”

  “The Light.”

  “Oh, that’s great! Just great! ‘Flying Saucer Men Stick Needles in Woman’s Eyes!’ I can’t stand it!” She snatched a beige raincoat off a hook and pulled it on over the robe. “You really are low, Ernie.”

  “Where y’goin?” he said as she headed for the door.

  “None of your business!”

  “You got a two-o’clock show!”

  “I’ll be back.”

  And then she was gone.

  “She betta come back,” Ernie said, squaring his shoulders inside his rumpled jacket and trying to look like he was really the boss. He smiled wanly at jay. “That all think they’re stars.”

  Jay nodded absently, thinking. He gauged Ernie’s weight at a compact 170. Liv had handled him easily.

  “Strong girl.”

  He smoothed his lapels. “Yeah.”

  “Sure she’s coming back?”

  “Absotootly. She always goes out between shows.” He sighed. “I think the broad’s a man-hater. She got her share of stage-door Johnnies, an now and then I see her let one buy her a drink, but she’s got no steady. Prolly a dyke.”

  Jay thought about those muscular arms and legs wrapped around another woman . . . what a waste.

  “But look,” Ernie was saying. “Tonight’s her e
arly night. She’s done at eight. Whyncha come back then and—”

  Jay shrugged. “Don’t see much of a story here, Ernie. Sorry.”

  “Maybe I can talk t’her, make her come aroun.”

  “Sure. Let me know.”

  Jay waved good-bye and headed down to 42nd Street. Followed it east to the Daily News building where he checked the morgue files for stories about a “ghost rape.” Sure enough: a little story in the lower left corner of page six. Olivia Hansen’s name in print, but no direct quotes. The story looked like it was culled from a police report.

  Jay thought of Olivia up on that stage with those sleek, shining muscles and felt a little lead sneaking into his wood. He idly wondered if maybe he had some fruity tendencies that muscles could get to him like this, but reminded himself that they were on a woman. That was the important thing: a good-looking woman.

  With muscles . . .

  Back to the files: He checked a few more years and found two other similar reports: another “ghost rape” and a “monster rape.” Both in the Times Square area.

  The juices began flowing as he headed for the street. By the time he reached his office he was psyched. He had his story: Something prowled Times Square at odd intervals, ravaging women. Its victims said it was hideous, ghostlike. What was it? A man? Or something else? Was it perhaps the living excrescence of all the sleaze, disease, perversion, and depravity of Times Square? The embodied concentrate of the lost hopes and shattered dreams of the wretched, wrecked lives of those who haunted the Square?

  Oooh, that sounded good.

  And not all that farfetched. After all, the White House had been occupied by an Irish Catholic for the past couple of years. What could be more farfetched than that?