Gristle & Bone

by Duncan Ralston

  Then: a great thump echoed from the altar chamber. She pictured Jörg throwing himself against the door, and hurried her descent, beginning to smell brackish water, suggesting sea caves or underground pools. Her throat felt incredibly dry, so parched she considered slurping the cold liquid pooled beneath her hands and knees... and somehow, despite everything she'd seen and eaten in the past day, June realized she was hungry.

  An eerie greenish glow shimmered ahead of her, not far from where she crawled. She hurried onward, ignoring the pain in her knees, until finally the passage opened above her head, and cool air washed brushed her cheeks.

  She stood with difficulty in a large chamber, her joints throbbing. Neon green phosphorescence illuminated the cave walls, and the glistening columns of rock like the rotted teeth of an enormous beast. A few feet from where she'd emerged from the stone passage was the source of the salty smell: a brackish pool of water, abnormally round, as if it had been bored by someone... or something. However it had come to be here, it was at least twenty feet wide, its depth impossible to determine in the gloom.

  A growl arose from deep inside the belly of the beast. It grew and then quieted again, the snarl of a gigantic, yellow-skinned troll: Saturn, the titan, uprooted from June's nightmare and transplanted into reality. She shivered, wrapping her arms over her chest to stay warm. The temperature had lowered by several degrees the further she'd gone into the hole; now, it was practically freezing.

  The noise steadied, fell again to a low grumble.

  Soon, she realized the growl didn't belong to a monster; the real monster held the growling thing in his hands. As June peered down into the black water, looking for an opening below, Armand emerged from a passage across the pool with the roaring chainsaw in his hands, and a helmet strapped on his head, its light shining into the cavern. The beam hovered over June, momentarily blinding her. She threw her arms up to shade her eyes.

  "Now I've got you, you bitch!" Armand shouted, his face greenish and alien-like from the phosphor, his green teeth visible in a snarl as he revved the saw. Its teeth whirred in the light from his helmet, sharp and hungry, and she knew she had nowhere left to run. If she crawled back into the hole, he'd catch her for certain—and if not him, then Jörg. He'd carve her into rough slices while she screamed and sweated and bled, and finally, mercifully, passed out from the sheer agony of it, the same as he'd done to the poor maid.

  The beam of Armand's flashlight twinkled against the black water, causing tiny glints of light like stars set against the vast black emptiness of space.

  June sucked in a deep breath, held it, and jumped. She had a moment to consider the possible consequences of such an impulsive act, and then she struck the frigid water, and something slithered about her head, her arms stinging with nettles. Pain slashed across the side of her head, a lightning bolt shooting down through her body to her feet, and then darkness.

  IV—An Epicurean's Delight

  VOICES ROUSED HER. June blinked at the harsh light, and looked around herself. Movement was difficult. Her head throbbed steadily, felt sticky and itched like hell.

  David sat beside her, wearing a look of terror and concern, thick ropes wound around his arms and torso, securing him to a Queen Anne chair. Two huge silver platters lay on the giant, carved slab dining table before them, blanketed with stalks of dark green romaine, beet-red radicchio, and sprigs of holly. Fat orange-pink prawns nestled on melting ice cubes over the greens, and placed among the crustaceans in front of June was a man's severed head. His milky green eyes stared directly at her, accusingly, a juicy violet plum placed in his mouth. His flesh had been roasted to a glistening, crispy golden brown, the scalp and face entirely devoid of hair (June considered, gruesomely, that it had cooked off), yet still she recognized him as the Mission gardener, whose innocent, unfortunate mistake had cost him his life. On the tray in front of David stood Josefina's head, her dark brown eyes widened in horror. The maid had been kept raw, her flesh turned blue-gray, a fresh apricot nestled between her lips. David stared at her with a mixture of guilt, revulsion and horror.

  "David," June groaned. Speaking hurt her head. Her throat was dry, her lungs sore. What happened to me in that pool? she wondered. Did I hit something... or did something hit me? "Where are we?"

  "I don't know. I was asleep, and then..." He squeezed his eyes closed. "...it felt like I was being smothered. Then I was here, tied to this fucking—" He struggled a moment, then gave up and blinked at her. "Are you hurt? You're bleeding."

  "I'm okay," she lied, and struggled with her own ropes. Not an inch of give. "We have to get out of here."

  "Tell me about it."

  His sarcasm annoyed her. It was his fault they were in this mess, wasn't it? If he hadn't made a point of tattling on Josefina—

  But she couldn't avoid blame. It was her curiosity that had brought them to this table. Her impertinence, for daring to mess with the Association... whoever the hell they might be.

  "You're awake," came a male voice from behind them. June twisted to look, but the back of her chair was too high. She saw nothing but her own hair, matted with blood, staining the rococo fabric.

  "Where are we?" David said immediately. "Why are you doing this to us?"

  "Tut-tut, Mr. Addison," the voice said. "All in good time."

  A rumbling approached from outside the dining hall. Beyond flocked wallpaper and portraits of cheerless old white men—each under their own brass lamp, as portraits of the Old Guard always seemed to be—something moved toward the darkened doorway.

  Not the chainsaw. Please.

  "Ah, our special guest has arrived," the man said at their ears. June swung her head, fireworks shooting through her vision—and saw nothing of the man holding them captive but an arm draped in white silk.

  June's heart sank as Armand wheeled in a dolly, their situation so much bleaker than she'd dared to imagine. Strapped to the dolly was Maximo Morales, naked and unconscious, quite possibly dead, and hairless but for the shiny black curls on his head. Armand had washed the blood from himself, and dressed neatly in a black tuxedo and bow tie. He stood the dolly up vertically, leaving Maximo prone and unconscious, with only a strap to conceal his nudity, and joined the man in the white suit, moving out of June's field of vision.

  "Max!" David shouted. He twisted his head to look at their captor. "Let him go, you bastards! What did he ever do to you?"

  A soft chuckle met his plea. "He was born," the man in the white suit seethed. "He crossed through our border and into our home. Like a goddamn cockroach."

  "He was born here," June said, not that it mattered one way or the other. Reasoning with these monsters was futile, but someone had to speak for Max. "His family's from Spain."

  "His father's Americo Morales," David added, hoping it meant something to these maniacs.

  "Dagos," Armand spat. "I don't know what's worse."

  The man in the white suit ignored them, kept plodding forward. "Build a bigger wall, they'll find other ways around it. Under it. Through it. The only reason we tolerate them is because they're so fucking good at what they do, and they do it with aplomb!"

  Armand picked up a metal bucket from the floor and tossed its contents at Max's face, painting him in crimson. David sank back against his chair, turning from the sight. Whose blood is it? June wondered. His or hers? That didn't matter, either. It was the blood of every immigrant, legal and illegal, who had dared to cross these people.

  Max roused, shook the blood from his hair and blinked it from his eyes. He sucked in a massive breath, his broad, skinny ribcage expanding, and let it out in a scream.

  "Max!" June called. "Max, it's us! June and David!"

  He blinked. The blood had dripped into his eyes, making the whites pink. "Where—the fuck—am I?" He looked beyond them, at their captors, the Associates. "You fucking pricks, what are you doing to us?"

  "We're going to get out of this, Max," David said, though it was clear from his tone he didn't believe it himself.
<
br />   "Like fuck you are," Armand said, and Max began to weep.

  "This one," the man in the white suit said, "mincing around like a schoolgirl. Do you believe he was hoping to get married in my town? To another man? You see? This is what they bring to us—the Europeans." He said the word with purest contempt, as if his own ancestors were a somehow nobler breed. "Shitty pop music and queerdom. And the Mexicans. Christ, what's to do with the Mexicans when they outlive their usefulness? I ask you this, Mr. and Mrs. Addison."

  When they didn't respond, he slammed his fist on the table between them, rattling the cutlery, stubby fingers with clean, square nails. The white cuff held a gold cufflink in the shape of some kind of sigil. His face remained out of sight. "Why not make a nice meal out of them, hmm?" He indicated the heads before them with a sweep of his hand, palm up. "Eating is a ritual, after all."

  Off to the right, Armand began sharpening a large kitchen knife—shhhick shhhick shhhick—wearing a look of fixed concentration as he stepped between them, still sharpening, and plucked a carving fork from the table. He jabbed it at an angle into the gardener's cheek. The blade carved flesh, a smell arising from the steaming meat: something like roast pork, but slightly tangy and acidic. The meat was white, and clear juices dripped down to the gardener's chin.

  June felt a pang of hunger and turned away in disgust. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, and the strenuous afternoon had depleted her energy. Despite the type of meat now prickling her nostrils, she found it difficult not to salivate—and the thought that she'd partaken of Jörg's "forbidden fruit" the night before and still felt fine, while David had vomited up every last bit, made her wonder what kind of monster she was herself, to not only have enjoyed it but kept it down.

  "Mmm! Num-num!" The man in the white suit smacked his lips. "Looks scrumptious, doesn't it? Well, bon appétit, as the French say—right, Armand?" he added with a chuckle, and suddenly his chest exploded outward in a spray of blood, spattering against June and David's cheeks, while from the doorway came a seemingly simultaneous explosion. The man gasped and slumped over the table, one hand scattering the shrimp on Josefina's platter, and tipping her head at an unsettling angle. His hat, white straw, had settled brim-up beside the gardener.

  Armand brandished the knife and the sharpener, stepping into a defensive stance. Two more reports flashed from the darkness in the hall, and he shook like a ragdoll before falling back on the chair at the head of the table. The chair tipped, and Armand crashing down beside it on the floor. The man in the white suit, a small man with thinning silver hair and a tanned, lined neck, whimpered. His scrawny buttocks began to slide downward, the suit jacket pulling up, exposing a nest of fine silver hairs on his back. His weight tugged the tablecloth before he fell sideways, clunking his head on the arm of June's chair. He crumpled to the floor with an agonized exhale.

  "Son!" the intruder's gruff voice said, stepping into the light from the chandelier, handsome and muscular and slightly frazzled. Americo Morales wore a loose blue chambray shirt, white slacks and hiking boots. In his right hand, he held a silver, long-barreled gun. In that moment, he couldn't have looked more heroic.

  "Oh, thank God!" David gasped.

  Americo approached his son, tucking the pistol into the back of his pants. Max Morales had passed out again, his chin resting on his clavicle, a little runner of blood-tinged drool hanging from his open mouth. "Is he okay? Is he hurt?"

  "He's fine," June said. "Just pretty shaken up."

  "They were going to kill him," David said. "They thought he was Mexican," he added, and laughed somewhat deliriously. Americo gave David an odd look, then began to unstrap his son from the dolly. The boyish man fell into his father's arm. Americo hugged him to his chest, and began to weep.

  The man in the white suit groaned.

  "Sir?" David said. "Sir!"

  Americo blinked away tears, and peered back at them.

  "This one's still alive."

  Americo narrowed his eyes, and laid his son on the floor. Max curled immediately into the fetal position and put a thumb in his mouth, fully regressed in his terror. His father stood, jerking the gun from his slacks, and he stepped over to David's side and shot the man twice, point-blank. The shots were satisfyingly loud.

  "Fucking old-money prick," Americo grunted, and spat on the dead man at his feet. He laid the gun (wood-handled, with PYTHON 357 etched into the barrel) on the table between them, took in the sight of Josefina and the gardener, and swallowed something distasteful. "Jesus," he said. "To think I'd hired these people to cater my party."

  He began to untie June. The ropes slackened, and she struggled with them. "Hold on, sweetheart. It's June, right? You're going to be okay, June. Looks like you put up one hell of a fight."

  June nodded, smiling gratefully. A tear dropped; she felt it prickle a trail down the blood coagulating on her cheek.

  The ropes fell. June wriggled out and stood, freed—delighted. She swayed on her feet, woozy from the blow to her head whatever had caused it (she remembered, vaguely, a large and unseen thing writhing in the dark, some squirming, natatorial creature with stinging nettles), and she grasped the table.

  Americo was untying David. "Anything you need me to do, just ask," David said. "Anything."

  Meanwhile, June stood over the man in the white suit, which was now almost entirely red. She hauled back and kicked him as hard as she could. His body shifted, but he uttered no sound. The toe of her dock shoe came back bloody.

  "—how did you find us, though?" David was obsessing about details, as was his custom. "It just seems... I don't know. Kind of well-timed."

  "Son, have you ever heard the expression 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth'?" Americo asked this with a stern look, and David stopped talking. In a moment he was freed, and rubbing at his wrists. His boss went down to one knee beside Armand's lifeless body. He threw a look back over his shoulder. "I want you kids to get as far away from here as possible," he said, and unbuckled Armand's belt.

  "Shouldn't we call the police?" David asked.

  "He is the police," Americo said, indicating the man in white. "That's Sheriff Cooper I just put three hollow-points through."

  "That's not good."

  "No, it is not. Leave town. Don't pack up. If you get a phone call from any unknown numbers in the next couple of days, I suggest you don't answer it."

  "What about you? What will you do?" June asked, as the man slid the waiter's pants down to the knees. The Frenchman wore silk briefs over his deeply-tanned legs, the exposed buttocks pale.

  "Well, first I'm going to dress my son, and take him back to his mother and fiancé." He jerked the pants over Armand's bare feet, and brought them to Max. Pausing there for a moment, he eyed the two of them sharply. "And then I'm going to move Heaven and Earth to turn this whole goddamn town into a parking lot."

  June took David's hand, and they ran. Lifeless, musty unfurnished rooms seemed to go on forever: the great halls, the dusty libraries, the swollen antechambers. It was a mausoleum; nobody lived here but the dead. They lost themselves twice, had to turn and circle back, only to head through another dark doorway, another bare, enormous room. Finally, they came to a solid door set in a gothic arch, much wider and sturdier than the others. June let go of David's hand to throw the bolt back, and tore it open.

  A bitter wind whipped up at them from the yawning cliff at their feet, the smell of salt water strong. Its rocky face crumbled into the ocean far below as they stood gripping the smooth stone arch. The mansion had been built by the ocean; erosion had brought the cliff to its walls.

  "Honey?" David said, his voice small, frightened. June turned to him, saw that he was looking down—not just looking but staring. She followed his gaze, and saw frenzied movement in the shadows along the rocky shore. Crabs, she thought; there must be hundreds of them. But her eyes adjusted, seeing it now for what it was: a behemoth cloaked in darkness, a slithering, crawling leviathan dragging itself up from the churning tide. She saw eyes, a
glimpse of its hide, and legs, and claws, but all of these quickly vanished, swirling away into its dark shroud.

  June scrabbled back out of the doorway, terrified into action. David stood where he was, fixated on the grotesque thing rising from the depths. She tore his fingers from the door, and he rocked on his feet, a stunned look in his eyes. She shook him, and the blank look cleared. He seemed to realize what was happening, and stepped back from the abyss.

  "What... what is that thing?"

  June said nothing, only slammed the door on it.

  Hurrying back the way they'd come, he stopped suddenly and stared straight ahead, appearing confused. June tugged him forward by the hand, and they ran past the dining hall again, where the dead remained dead, and Americo and Max had departed.

  Out on the front lawn, its grounds gone to ruin, the toothless cadaver of a mansion receded into the dark. A sudden wave of dizziness struck her as they passed through its moldering gardens, and she stopped only for a moment, catching her breath, letting the oxygen flow to her swimming head. Then they took to the hill, damp grass licking at her bare calves, and when they finally broke through the woods, June and David found themselves in a clearing behind Ambrosia.

  No smoke arose from the chimney. Its fire had finally guttered out.

  Once in the car, David drove as if the Devil were at their back wheels, but it seemed as though the thing draped in shadow hadn't followed. Driving gave him something to focus on, and June's head hurt too much to look at anything but the mirrors, searching for frantic movement in the dark.

  "How are we going to get past this?" he asked her, with another nervous glance at the rearview as they turned onto the highway. "Knowing what we know... everything we've seen... Can we just forget it ever happened? Is that even possible?"

  "We have to try," she said. June felt him gazing at her, not looking at the road, so she tore her eyes from the mirror to look back at him. His eyes were pleading, requiring something more from her, which she didn't have to give. She forced a smile, put a hand on his thigh, and squeezed.