Succubi

Succubi

Edward Lee

Necro Publications

— 2010 —

First Digital Edition

—

Smashwords Edition

Also available in a signed trade paperback edition

ISBN: 978-1-889186-39-9

Succubi © 1992 by Edward Lee

This digital edition June 2010 © Necro Publications

—

Special thanks to Dave Barnett, Ginger Buchanan, for publishing the p/b, and Bob Strauss.

—

Prologue

“They cooked heads,” Ms. Eberle said.

Professor Fredrick quailed. His mind seemed adrift in the presiding pause. They cooked heads. He stared at the odd, gracile woman, then stared back down into the pit of skulls.

A cooking pit, he realized.

Despite the sun’s fierce blaze, he shivered in the clean, highland air. The site made him think of violations, of rape. A line of enthusiastic students tore at the face of the ridge with 20 pound pickaxes. Others turned shovels around amorphous shapes of things that the last six days of excavation had raised from the oblivion of ages. Dust rose in billows. The hectic sound of metal striking rock rang as a familiar song. Fredrick had spent his life doing this: disgorging smothered civilizations from the thick skin of the earth. Yet he’d never felt this way before. He felt like a trespasser.

Ms. Eberle stood beside him, gazing down into the dig like a god on a precipice. She was skinny and rather tall, pallid–a female version of Fredrick. Straight gray black hair had been cut around her gaunt face like a helmet. She had inordinately large breasts for her frame, which stretched the front of her khaki field blouse. Big pale blue eyes watched intently over the dig’s activity. When she smiled, the slit of her mouth showed a row of sharp, even white teeth.

She carried a bizarre expertise: an archaeological sociologist. Fredrick had read many of her papers in the journals; her work fascinated him—the application of societal mechanics to mythology. She was also perhaps the world’s only expert on the obscure pre Iberian race known as the Ur locs. Fredrick had contacted her in the states when the Oxford dig had begun to unearth things that weren’t supposed to be in the inclusion perimeter.

Cenotaphs. Dolmens. Huge mass graves in the middle of the plush English countryside.

A British air survey had notified Oxford University when some telltale traits had shown up on the topography plates. They’d thought it was an urn field. Oxford had then commissioned Fredrick and his team to start digging; they’d been looking for a misplaced Saxon settlement in the area since the discovery of several Brython tomes twenty years ago. Fredrick hadn’t been on the site a day when he realized they’d stumbled upon something else altogether.

They cooked heads, the woman’s soft throaty voice slipped back into his mind. Butchers. Cannibals.

A big diesel dredger pumped racket and fumes into the dappled sky. Young stratigraphy technicians finnicked with core cutters at the face of the deepest stope. Here time was a measurement, not in years, but in strati, in camelhair brushes, and in dust. Fluorine probes were thrust into orifices of wet clay and shale. No, this was no urn field—it was a corpse vault.

Tall trees shuddered around the dells, as if in pain. The site looked bombed, crater pocked. Dirt smudged students lifted buckets of trinkets off the winzeline, and carried them off on poles across their shoulders. The conveyor rolled up rock chunks and human bones out of the main trench.

“The Ur locs,” Fredrick said. “So you’re certain now?”

Ms. Eberle twisted a macro lens onto a modified Nikon F. “There’s no doubt,” she told him. “Everything your people have found corresponds directly to the archives of the Roman Occupation. This is the archaeological find of the decade.”

Her big eyes beamed back into the exhumation. Their glint made Fredrick think of lust.

«« — »»

The dig was nearly over. They were already past budget. Fredrick and Ms. Eberle walked past the last copse toward the tents. He looked down at his clay flecked leather boots, the same he’d worn on countless digs. From Galli to Nineveh, from Jericho to Troy to Knossos. He abstracted, wanting to smile. He thought of himself as a specter of the future. All these cities, once great, had been predestined to be trod upon by Fredrick’s old boots a millennium later. Time buried. Whole civilizations locked in layers of clay. He was walking on worlds, and some day, he realized, someone like him would walk on his.

“We’re going to be famous,” Ms. Eberle whispered.

“What?”

She didn’t answer, trudging on. Trucks rumbled out of the excavation, their springs straining against the proof of ages. Lots of bronze and primal iron. Brooches, jupon clips, stave caps and decorative armlets. Crates of potsherds exhaled rising ageless dust as the trucks rumbled on. They’d found a lot of cutlery, finely crafted and still sharp. Flat blades with long tangs, clearly not Saxon or Frisian. Cnifs, Eberle had called them. For human sacrifice. They’d found several cauldrons that were huge. Fek-chettles. But Ms. Eberle seemed most excited by the manuscripts. The well made earthenware and high nitrogen soil had preserved them; she photographed almost all of them before the truth of the open air had disintegrated the parchment to fine dust, infinity taking back what it was owed.

They stopped at the crossroads, to watch the last of the exodus. The trucks moved on, full of crates of the entrails of another time.

The last trucks carried significantly more:

Bones.

How many pits had they disinterred? How many graves? How many trenches ensiled with human heads?

“The graves will take months to exhume,” Ms. Eberle remarked.

“We don’t have months,” Fredrick replied. He stood upright against the mounting weight of his age. His tanned, lined face looked like a dried creek bed. “That’s what I need to talk to you about. We may not even have hours.”

“What do you mean?” she stiffened to object. “Don’t you realize what this is? This dig is the only physical evidence in the world of the Ur locs’ existence. They’re not an obscurity anymore, this excavation proves that they were real.”

“I’ll tell you something that’s more real. Recession. Tax rates. Inflation. We think we’ve got it bad in the states? This is England. Oxford will probably terminate the funds now. They paid us to find a Saxon urn field.”

The awkward woman’s face seemed to redden. “It’s history. How can they turn their backs on their own history?”

Easy, Fredrick thought. “You’ll get your chance to convince them. The appropriations liaison will be here in the morning. Just don’t get your hopes up.”

Their footsteps crunched up the weed tangled path. The sun seemed misshapen this close to dusk, an orb of molten orange light losing its contour to the slow and steady churn of the earth.

Fredrick held open the canvas flap. As she entered the tent, he stared after her, and the lithe shadow. He paused in time, then entered the tent himself, wondering how many thousands of people had been butchered here.

«« — »»

It was the ease with which Ms. Eberle spoke that made Fredrick queasy. She assessed several field photos of the huge cauldrons. “The Ur locs did things that would make Vlad the Impaler look like Captain Kangaroo. Skinning, castrating, dismembering—it was all part of their art. They plundered whole settlements, not for spoils or territorial expansion, but for infydels to serve either as sacrificial victims, slaves, or food. They were big on sacrificing children from conquered settlements. Babies provided the ultimate sacrifice to the object of the Ur locs’ belief. Men were taken as slaves. Women were butchered for food. The Ur locs considered any women out of their bloodline to be spiritual enemies. So they ate them.”

Fredrick’s old hand shook slightly as he poured tea from a thermos. The tea steamed before their faces.

“And these cauldrons, the chettles?” She pointed to one of the photos. “They’ve got a volumetric capacity of about 100 gallons. They filled them with blood and cooked their festival meats in them. I figured it out. Do you know how many human beings would be needed to provide 100 gallons of blood?”

Fredrick winced in the wake of the revolting question. “How many?” he dared himself to ask.

“About seventy five.”

Jesus, Fredrick thought.

“They roasted babies by the dozens on dolmens,” she went on, brushing clay dust out of her hair. “They were very concerned with youth, or should I say with the spiritual cyclic inversion of human worldliness to infinity. Hence, the ritual obsession with the sacrifice of youth. It was all a transaction, a gesture of tribute by way of a spiritual emulation.”

“That’s preposterous,” Fredrick said.

“Is it? Is it really? The Ur locs were a very secretive occult society. They lived for over a thousand years amongst the Celts, Goidels, and Brythons with little or no knowledge of their existence. Ur, by the way, is a pre Old English derivative for weik or wicc.”

“Witches,” Fredrick offered.

“Yes. We’re talking about a subcultural belief system that predates European record. Witches, before the existence of witchcraft. It was all transitive. By sacrificing youth, they reasoned that they could metamorphose that youth into the object of their beliefs. Faith and sacrifice. It’s the foundry of all religious systems, Christianity included.”

“Christians didn’t roast babies on dolmens,” Fredrick said.

“No, but read about what the Christians were before Christ, before the laws of the Old Testament were eradicated by the New Covenant. They believed in the same God, yet they were notoriously sacrificial. Read Leviticus, if you have the stomach. It’s universal, Professor. It’s proof of sanctity.”

“Sanctity? What does cooking human flesh in 100 gallon cauldrons of blood have to do with sanctity?”

“Blood,” she replied. “The essence of life. It was a symbol, and it can be said that any religion functions through a mechanical utility of sociological symbols. It can also be said that religion demonstrates a society’s sense of hope through faith.” Did she pause to smile? “Blood, the essence of life. Is not the consumption of blood a universal gesture of perpetuity? Of sanctity? The Druids were doing it six hundred years before Christ was born. Ever heard of Holy Communion?”

“Fine,” Fredrick said. He felt disgusted, tired. What would the funds liaison think when he was told what the Ur locs really were? He wished they’d found their dull, easy urn field instead.

Ms. Eberle splayed out more photos. One showed a deep cooking pit. “The Ur locs had a particular taste for human brains, slow cooked in the skull. The heads would steam in their own juices for several hours, whereupon they were removed and cracked open with stone mallets. They had slaves who were trained exclusively for this task, called cok-braegans, which means, literally, brain cookers. The brains were served piping hot over chunks of baked oatmash.”

Now Fredrick’s stomach seemed to be intent on turning itself inside out. His bile roiled.

“And you’ve heard of Rocky Mountain Oysters? Well, the Ur locs had their own variation. Human testicles were corn-floured and deep fried in pots of sesame oil. They also had a bone marrow potpourri that proved a favorite appetizer. The marrow was blended with peppers and wild onions, pan simmered to coagulation, and served on wheat cakes. Kind of like pate on toast points. A most notorious ceremonial dish—reserved for high ranking Ur loc priestesses—was called ‘womb bread.’ Human uteri were stuffed with stone ground wheat and leaven and then baked in stone ovens. Quite often, semen was used as a baste.”

Womb bread, Fredrick thought in bald revulsion.

“Ovaries were marinated and skewered over an open wood fire. Lungs were pureed, carefully blended with wild raspberries, and cooked like pudding. Tongues, lips, and facial muscles were minced, spiced, wrapped in human skin, then fried in oil until crisp. The most famous Ur loc festival meal was known as entrillus-brok—which means ‘gut roll’: chopped bowel wrapped in lotus leaves and steamed in blood.”

Fredrick paled, looking back at her in utter silence. His mouth felt dry as sand as Ms. Eberle continued her all too detailed description of Ur loc cuisine.

“As for the cauldrons, they were brought to a high, roaring boil. Choice organs such as the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, were immersed into the boiling blood and stirred regularly. All of the larger muscle groups were expertly filleted and tossed into the pot, too. Herbs and spices were added gradually, and toward the end of the boil, veggies were tossed in.”

Veggies. Fredrick’s mind swam in a momentary fog of terrible imagery. He could picture the Ur loc abattoirs, where human beings were filleted like trout, where abdominal cavities were systematically cleaned of their choicest parts, and where throats were slit and pitilessly emptied into hot cauldrons. Womb bread, he thought. Gut roll. Could such a society have really existed? Could spiritual beliefs actually have compelled people to roast babies? “Ms. Eberle,” he said, shaking off the fog. “When the liaison arrives, I think you might spare him these culinary details. He’ll want to know why the Ur locs are important from an archaeological standpoint. What are you going to tell him?”

“The truth,” Ms. Eberle returned. “The Ur locs were a female dominant society. They regarded the whole of the male race as a necessary evil. Whenever an Ur loc gave birth to a male child, that child was summarily sacrificed to the object of their beliefs. Ur loc commanders attacked outside settlements with a militia composed entirely of male slaves from previous conquests.”

“That’s a bit hard to believe.”

“Perhaps you just don’t want to believe it. You just don’t want to believe that women have existed as a sociological superior over men, when in fact there are many such examples throughout history.”

Was that it? Fredrick didn’t think so. “How did they do it, then? How were a bunch of renegade amazons able to enslave whole communities of men?”

“That’s a legitimate query, Professor,” she admitted. “But unfortunately there’s no clear-cut answer. As I’ve stated, the Ur locs were witches. The Roman registry abounds with occult reference to them, and though the Celts left very little written record of themselves, the little they did leave documents it all.”

“Witches, you mean? You’re telling me that the Ur locs reigned over a territory for a thousand years because they put spells on men?”

“I’m not saying that myself. Just read the registries. According to record, the Ur locs ritualistically called upon the object of their beliefs to empower them against their enemies. But it scarcely matters. I don’t believe in the occult, Professor Fredrick. However, I do believe in the importance of studying the function of the Ur loc race as a sociological unit. You must admit, though, how quickly we tend to laugh at that which we cannot objectively or scientifically explain…”

As she spoke, he tuned out her words. Very slowly an image began to supplant itself into Fredrick’s head. He saw peasants fleeing in horror at the thunder of hoofs, shadows descending, swords and battleaxes held high. He saw the innocent butchered in place, torsos shorn and limbs severed in the wake of horses and dust. Great blades glimmered, sinking into random flesh as simple dwellings were set ablaze. He saw women cutting heads off people. He saw babies plucked out of the arms of shrieking mothers. Beautiful strong women dismounted amid the terror, long dark hair flowing like manes, their bodies limber in battledress. Dismembered corpses twitched in the dirt as heads were dropped into the smoking pits. Blood gushed. Screams wheeled into the air. The glorious Ur locs directed blank faced slaves to eviscerate the dying and the dead. And through the atrocious clarity of the image, Professor Fredrick was able to glimpse the face of one of these destitute servitors.

It was his own.

“…and quite regrettable, though, the tendency of our intellectualism to discount the esoteric and the obscure.”

Fredrick’s consciousness resurfaced. His old heart slowed down like an afterfright when the image lapsed and was replaced by Ms. Eberle’s glinting eyes and grin.

“What happened to them?” Fredrick asked. He sipped his tea, to distract himself. The tea was cold.

“No one knows for sure. Like the Mayans and the Tai’tks, the Ur locs seemed to have disappeared within a very specified chronology. There’s no evidence to support the likelihood of a military annexation or genocide. Famine or plague are equally unlikely. My guess, based on the nomenclature of their religion, is that they probably disappeared via a premeditated population dispersal.”

“What makes you say that?”

“A simple connotative survey of their practice of worship. Every aspect of Ur loc culture is well recorded in the Roman archival records. The Ur locs, like the Druids and the Hindus, practiced a religion that was ascensional. They viewed physical life as a process of spiritual purification. More than likely the Ur locs deemed that they had risen to a sufficient spiritual stratification of purity, whereupon they dispersed themselves into outside populations, as per the mandates of the object of their belief.”

Incomprehension bloomed on Fredrick’s facial features. The object of their belief. She’d used that term several times, hadn’t she? He didn’t want to ask, but he asked anyway: “What exactly was the object of their belief?”

“According to the Romans, they called it the Ardat Lil,” she told him, “though countless religious systems have worshipped a similar or even identical deity. Consider the derivations from Middle and Old English: the loc in Ur loc, and the Lil in Ardat Lil. Hence, liloc, which roughly translates as sex spirit.”

Professor Fredrick still didn’t understand.

Ms. Eberle leaned back in the folding chair. Very subtly, then, she seemed to grin. “The Ardat Lil was a succubus.”

—

Chapter 1

Up ahead, shadows merged behind flashing red and blue lights. Her headlights illumined the great orange sign: “State Police Field Sobriety Checkpoint. Prepare To Stop.”

Oh, goodie, she thought. By now, after all the hubbub at the office, then Dr. Harold’s diagnostic inexplicabilities, Ann needed something to liven her up.

I am going to kick some ass.

Naturally, the police would pick the least convenient place to conduct this infamous unconstitutionality: the city’s main drag during homeward rush hour. Ann stopped her Mustang GT before one state trooper’s opened palm. Two more troopers, faceless before the stroboscopic backlighting, approached the driver’s window.

“Good evening, ma’am” one said.

“It was,” Ann replied.

“Pardon me?”

“I mean to say it was a good evening until you saw fit to burdening me with this unwarranted and unreasonable deprivation of my civilian right to vehicular transit.”

“That’s not a very good attitude, is it, ma’am?”

“Is it the prerogative of the state police to enforce attitudes, Officer?”

The trooper paused. “Can I see you driver’s license and registration, please?”

“I don’t know if you can, Officer. I’m not an eye doctor. Therefore, I’m in no credible position to determine what you can see. May you see my driver’s license and registration? Well, I suppose so.” Ann handed them over.

“Have you been drinking, Ms. Slavik?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“How much?”

“I’m not quite sure. I didn’t know it was a requirement of law for citizens to inventory their daily intake of fluids. Is it?”

“How much have you had to drink today, Ms. Slavik?”

She considered this. “Probably half a dozen cups of coffee. One Diet Coke for lunch. And one bottle of Yoo Hoo for the ride home.” She held the Yoo Hoo bottle up for him to see.

The trooper paused. “Have you been drinking any alcohol today, Ms. Slavik?”

“Alcohol? You mean the volatile and highly flammable hydroxyl compound commonly used in industrial solvents and cleaners, a deadly poison? No, Officer, I have not been drinking alcohol today. If you mean have I been drinking any alcoholic beverages, the answer is no.”

Again, the trooper paused. “Ms. Slavik, I’d like for you to get out of your car.”

“Why?” she asked. “To make me touch my nose against my will? To make me walk on a line against my will? To make me blow into a 1.0 mean Smith & Wesson Breathalyzer?”

“We call it a sobriety field test, Ms. Slavik.”

“Is that what you call it? I call it police harassment. It’s not against the law to be uncoordinated, Officer, nor are you professionally qualified to determine my state of physical coordination. Nor can you guarantee the judge beyond a doubt the accurate function and calibration of a breathalization device. Now, listen to me, Officer. I’m thirty seven years old. I stand five feet and four inches, and I weigh 109 pounds. You’re what? Early twenties, six foot two, 200 pounds at least, am I right, and your friend there, he’s even larger. In other words you two constables are big, strong, young men who can easily remove me from my vehicle against my will on a city thoroughfare. And, yes, I suppose, you could also force me to perform your ridiculous sobriety field test. I would be helpless to stop you, considering the state of fear I would be in. In fact, I suppose any woman would be helpless in such an instance against two big, strong, young men with deadly weapons on their hips. What I’m saying, Officer, is that if you want to forcibly remove me from my vehicle on a city street and force me to perform your embarrassing and grossly unconstitutional test, then go right ahead. If you do, however, I will sue your department for lost wages, future harm, and mental anguish, since such an instance would surely distress me to the point that I would miss work, that my employment status would be compromised, and that I would suffer mentally as a result. If, on the other hand, you choose to arrest me, I will sue your department for all of the above, plus false arrest.”

The two troopers seemed to waver in silence. “Are you a lawyer, Ms. Slavik?” the second one asked.

“Is it within the power of the police to forcibly extract the employment status of random citizens? I think I will reserve the right to remain silent from this point on, Officer, unless of course the United States Constitution has somehow been rescinded since the last time I looked. Now…let me pass.”

The two troopers stepped back and waved her on.

Much better Ann Slavik thought, and continued down West Street. She knew they were only doing their job, but she needed to play with them to get her mind off things. All right, so I’m an asshole. I can’t help it. I’m a lawyer.

The day had been the most unusual of her life, a great triumph and a great confusion. She’d been waiting for this day for seven years, she should be happy. But all she could think about now was what Dr. Harold had said.

About the dream. About the nightmare.

«« — »»

She could hear Martin typing when she let herself in. Why didn’t he get himself a computer? At least they didn’t make as much noise. She’d offered to pay for it, but he’d assured her that he didn’t want one. “I will not allow my muse to be tainted by floppy disks and blips on a TV screen,” he’d said. Ann knew the real reason: he couldn’t afford one on his “slave wages” from the college. And his male pride would not allow her to buy one for him.

She came into the slate foyer and closed the door with her butt. Then she groaned relief, setting down her litigation bag, which weighed more than a suitcase. The lit bag was any attorney’s bane; you carried your life around in it, and a lawyer’s life weighed a lot. A professional studio portrait of her with Melanie and Martin smiled at her when she hung up her Burberry raincoat. My family, she abstracted. But was it really? Or was it just her own weak compromise at normality? Often the portrait depressed her—it reminded her of what her indecision must be doing to Martin. She feared that, as each month passed, Martin grew more disgruntled with her reluctance to marry him. She knew that he blamed himself, that he lived each day in some inner dread wondering what it was about him that wasn’t good enough, and this only made her feel worse because it had nothing to do with his inadequacies at all. It was something in herself that she didn’t know how to express. What’s holding me back? her mind dimly asked the portrait. She knew it would never answer.

She wandered to the living room and switched on the TV out of habit. She expected the same dismal disclosures: deficits, bank failures, murder. Instead, a newscaster with too much makeup on was saying: “…the recently repaired Hubble telescope. Last week astronomers at NASA reported the approach of what is known as a full tangental lunar apogee, a full moon that will occur at the same moment as this year’s vernal equinox. ‘It doesn’t sound like much of a big deal to the average person,’ John Tuby of MIT told reporters this morning, ‘but to astronomers it’s significant news. The moon will appear pink at times, due to a straticulate refraction. It’s the first phenomenon of its kind in a thousand years.’ So get out your telescopes, stargazers, and get ready,” the silly newscaster went on. “Up next, poodles on skis!”

Poodles on skis. Ann turned off the set. At least it beat the usual news. She’d been hearing about the equinox thing for several days, like it was a paramount event. She didn’t care what color the moon was, nor why. All she cared about now was relaxing.

She turned to the hall. “I’m home,” she announced.

Home was a luxury three bedroom condo just off the Circle. It was perfect, but for $340,000 it should be; that’s what condos went for on the water. Ann liked it. Melanie had the second bedroom, and the third Ann used for an office. Martin had the little den for his writing. It was a corner unit. The balcony off the master faced the water, and the den faced State Circle, which was beautiful to look at at night. Ann would miss the place. When you made partner, you didn’t live in a condo.

Martin was out of the den in moments, with his worrywart eyes. Writers were weird, but Martin’s weirdnesses were different. At least once a week he threatened to quit writing in order to strengthen their relationship, and she grimly believed him. He felt guilty about his money situation, which was ridiculous. He taught literature part time at the college and wrote the rest of the time. Ann paid more in state taxes than Martin grossed per year. He was a poet, critically acclaimed. “Critically acclaimed means you get great reviews and don’t make any money,” he’d once told her. His poetry collections, four so far, and by a major publisher, had been written up very positively in the Post’s BookWorld, the New York Times, Newsweek, and every major literary magazine in the country. Last year his agent had sold three of his short stories to Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and Esquire, and he’d made more money from those than the total royalties from his last book of poetry. “Write more short stories,” she’d suggested. “No, no,” he’d lamented. “Prose is defectible. Verse is the only truth in the written word as an art form.” Whatever, she’d thought.

“What did Dr. Harold say?” he asked now, and put his arms around her.

“The same. Sometimes I think I’m wasting my time.”

“Christ, Ann, you’ve only had three appointments so far. Give it a chance.”

A chance, she thought. The nightmare had started two months ago. She had it every night. Sometimes the details differed, but its bulk always remained the same. It bothered her now to the extent that she was fatigued at work; she felt off track. Martin had been the one to suggest seeing a psychiatrist. “It’s probably some subconscious worry about Melanie,” Martin had proposed. “A good shrink can isolate the cause and then find a way for you to deal with it.” She supposed that made sense. It wasn’t the $200 per hour that bothered her (Ann’s firm routinely billed that much per hour for an average client), it was that if she didn’t get to the bottom of it fast, her career might suffer, and if her career suffered, so would Melanie’s future, not to mention her relationship with Martin.

An abstract print on the wall showed the blotched back of a person’s head viewing a pointillistic twilight. Dream of the Dreamer, it was called, by a local expressionist. She and Martin had bought it at the Sarnath Gallery. Now, though, the warped shape of its subject reminded her of the pregnant belly of her dream.

She turned and kissed Martin. “Melanie here?”

“She’s with her friends.”

Oh, God. Melanie’s “friends” worried Ann more than any other aspect of her life. “The Main Street Punks,” the papers had dubbed them. Leather jackets, torn jeans held together with safety pins, and hairstyles that might compel Vidal Sassoon to hang himself. Ann realized it was a prejudice on her own part; these punks were to her what the hippies were to Ann’s parents’ generation. Martin had met some of them and assured her that they were okay. They looked wild was all—they looked different. The protective mother in Ann didn’t want Melanie to be different, even though the term was not relative. She knew she was being narrow minded but somehow that didn’t matter when it was your own daughter. Other people’s daughters, fine. But not mine. She loved Martin more truly than she’d ever loved in her life; however, all too often, his liberalism ate at her. They’d argued about it many times. “It’s a sensibility, Ann. When you were her age you were wearing peace signs and beads and listening to Hendrix. This is the same thing. It’s a trend that she relates to. Maybe if you tried to understand her more, she wouldn’t be so unsure of herself.” “Oh, I see,” Ann had countered. “Blame me. I must be a bad mother because I don’t want my only child hanging around with a bunch of people who look like Sex Pistols rejects! Jesus Christ, Martin, have you seen some of them? One of them has a metal spikes sticking out of his head!” “They look different, so they must be negative influences? Is that what you’re saying, Ann? Have you ever heard of self expression? Maybe if they all wore loafers with no socks and had names like Biff and Muffy, then they’d meet with your approval.” “Eat shit, Martin.” “They’re just innocent kids with a different view of the world, Ann. You can’t pick Melanie’s friends for her. That’s up to her, and you should respect that.”

Goddamn him sometimes. So what if he was right? Dr. Harold had proposed that her objection to Melanie’s friends was a defense mechanism. Ann felt so guilty about being away from Melanie so often that she sought out another, easier avenue of blame. “You work very hard,” the doctor had said. “You’ve made a tremendous success of yourself, but you use that fact to attack the ones you love. Subconsciously, you feel that you’ve been a neglectful mother, and you feel that that’s the cause of your daughter’s lack of confidence. But rather than admit that, and act upon it, you have chosen not to face it at all.”

Goddamn him too. “I’m paying two bills an hour to be insulted?”

Dr. Harold had laughed. “To see into yourself more clearly is no insult. If you want your daughter to be happy you have to support the way she feels about things. Every time you take a heated exception to her views, that’s an insult to her. Things like that can hurt a young mind.”

“She’s not a baby anymore, Ann,” Martin told her. “She’s a bright, creative seventeen year old now. Don’t worry about it.”

Ann sputtered. The day had been just too confusing, and Martin could see that. He glanced at his watch. “At last, it’s Beer O’clock.” He poured her a Sapphire and tonic and got himself one of his snob beers. Politely changing a bad subject was his way of not rubbing her misgivings in her face.

“You get much writing done today?” she asked. The first sip of her gin began to unwind her at once.

“All kinds. Would’ve gotten more, though, if it weren’t for the interruptions. Some guy kept calling for you. I’ll bet he called five, six times.”

“Some guy?”

“I kept telling him you wouldn’t be in till early evening. Asked if I could take a message, and he kept saying no.”

“Some guy?” she queried again.

“It must be your other lover,” Martin said.

“Yeah, but which one? I have dozens, you know.”

“Sure, but why bother with them when you’ve got a charming, intelligent, and very considerate man such as myself? Not to mention one of exceptional bedroom prowess.”

“I hate to burst your balloon, honey, but the only reason I keep you around is because you’re a good cook.”

“Ah, so that’s it.”

All jokes aside, this caller made her wonder. Perhaps it was someone from the office calling to congratulate her.

“The guy had a real funny voice, like someone with emphysema or something, or strep throat.”

Ann frowned it off. Whoever it was, they’d probably call back.

“I haven’t started dinner yet,” Martin admitted, and lit a cigarette. “I could thaw some—”

Ann’s state of distraction finally occurred to her. She hadn’t even told him yet, had she? “Don’t thaw anything,” she said. “We’re going out. I already made reservations at the Emerald Room.”

Suddenly, Martin looked grim. “That’s the most expensive restaurant in town.”

“It’s also the best.”

“Sure, but, uh, can we afford that?”

She wanted to laugh. Ann was rich by just about anyone’s standards, and much richer as of today. Martin’s financial pride always emerged at times like this. Ann essentially supported him, and they both knew that. By saying can we afford that? he was actually saying, I’m broke as usual, so you’ll have to pay for dinner. As usual.

“We’re celebrating, Martin.”

He tapped an ash suspiciously. “Celebrating what?”

“I made partner today.”

This news seemed to numb him for a moment. He just stood there, looking at her. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope. They took me by complete surprise. Yesterday I worked for Collims, Lemco, and Lipnick. Today I work for Collims, Lemco, Lipnick, and Slavik.”

“That’s great!” Martin finally rejoiced, and hugged her tight. But Ann had to masquerade her own joy. She’d waited seven years for this day, any lawyer’s greatest triumph, and all she could think about was the nightmare.

«« — »»

Martin had proposed to her twice. Ann had said no both times, and even now she wasn’t quite sure why. Backwash, she thought. Her first husband had left over ten years ago. Those had been hard times, and Mark hadn’t made them any easier. Ann was going to law school during the day, working at night, and raising Melanie as best she could in between. Mark’s failures hadn’t been all his fault. Her parents hadn’t liked him at all. Mom thought he looked “shifty,” and Dad assured her he was a “layabout.” Construction work paid well in this area so long as you were employed by a reliable contractor. Mark had been through several contractors who weren’t. He always felt inferior to Ann. At least all his time not working had saved Ann a lot of day care and baby sitter fees. A week after she’d graduated from law school, Mark disappeared. I’m sorry but I can’t hack it anymore, the note read. Find someone more worthy of you. Mark.

Her parents were actually happy about it, something for which she’d never really forgiven them. She’d never seen Mark again. Melanie had been about five at the time; she barely even remembered who her father was.

Ann’s first years with the firm had been so harried she’d had no social life at all. The few dates here and there were never allowed to amount to anything, not as a lawyer and a single mother. One day it dawned on her that three years had gone by without her having sex once. She couldn’t expect many men to want to assume the role of husband to a woman who worked ten to twelve hours a day six days a week and had a pensive teenage daughter by another man.

But Martin had been different. She’d met him at the college; the firm had purchased a computer system, and Ann had been required to take a three day word processing course. Martin had been sitting in the cafeteria, smoking over a pile of student essays about the thematics of Randall Jarrell. He’d merely looked up, made some small talk, and asked her out for a drink. They’d had a nice, polite, and innocuous time at the Undercroft, and that had been that. A week later they were dating regularly. What helped was that his writing schedule conformed to her work schedule. There was never any tension there, and she never had to force herself to go out when she was too tired. Before he’d moved in with her and Melanie, he’d laid it all right out. “I’m a poet, this is my only occupational aspiration. I write six to eight hours a day, every day, and I teach part time at the college. I could teach full time and take extra classes for more money, but if I did that, my writing would suffer. I will never do that. I’ll probably never make more than twenty thousand a year. Before we go any further with this, I want you to know that. I want it all on the table so there won’t be any misunderstandings later. A poor poet is all I will ever be.” Were all men so money conscious? Ann had never doubted her love for him; she didn’t care how much money he made as long as he loved her. And she never doubted that either.

Martin was a good househusband. He taught two classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The other days he wrote from morning to dinnertime. He liked routines; “psychical and creative order,” he called it. He’d take Melanie to school every morning, then he’d go home and write or go to school and teach, then he’d write some more and pick Melanie up. He cooked all their meals (all writers were good cooks) and even washed the dishes! He split the laundry and cleaning chores with Melanie. Many nights Ann wasn’t home for dinner, but that had never been a problem either. Melanie had taken to him instantly. He encouraged her and counseled her better than Ann could ever expect to, and since they were both flaming liberals, they both agreed on everything. Martin even liked Melanie’s wild, discordant music. At least once a month he would drive her and some of her friends to one of the New Wave clubs in D.C. to see bands like the Car Crash Symphony, Alien Sex Fiend, and Nixon’s Head. “Nixon’s Head!” Ann had once tiraded. “You took her to see a band called Nixon’s Head?” “Creative alternativism, my dear,” Martin had quietly responded. “Without it we’d be another Red China.” Maybe Ann was stupid but she didn’t understand how a group called Nixon’s Head could be proof of democracy. Nevertheless, without Martin, Melanie would have no father figure at all, and would probably have run away for good by now. Martin was tolerant of things most men could never be: stable, kind in the face of her job stress, never jealous, and someone who wouldn’t rant and rave every time she had to work late on depositions or had to take clients out to restaurants where dinner for two cost more than Martin made in a week. He didn’t feel subservient at all; he even jokingly referred to himself as her “wife.” He insisted on contributing the little he could toward the mortgage, and refused to let her replace his ten year old Ford Pinto with a Corvette. “People will think I’m your gigolo,” he’d objected. “Any poet who doesn’t drive a ten year old car with at least 150,000 miles on it is a complete fake.”

His first proposal had been made in good humor. “If you don’t marry me soon, the neighbors’ll think all I’m good for is sex.” “That’s not true, Martin. You’re also a very good cook. Let’s talk about it later.” The second time had turned ugly. “I’m not comfortable with the idea of marriage right now,” she’d said, now twice turning down the ring which he must’ve saved years for. “Why?” he asked. “Because I was married once before and it didn’t work out,” she said. “It’s not my fault you married an asshole!” he yelled back. She’d felt terrible about it for days because his point was legitimate. Part of it was she didn’t want to be married until she knew she was occupationally secure.

But was that really the problem?

What’s wrong with me? she thought.

«« — »»

Getting Melanie to dress appropriately had been like pulling teeth. “Yes, you’re going,” Ann had ordered. “And, no, you can’t wear leather pants and that Rob Zombie T shirt.” It had been Martin, of course, who’d convinced her. “Conforming to conformity is a statement too, isn’t it?” he’d asked. Melanie had then actually put on a dress without another word. “I feel like a yuppie,” she’d said, grinning as the hostess had seated them by the window. The Emerald Room was indeed the best restaurant in town. The state legislature had their power lunches here every day while in session, and brought plenty of lobbyists for dinner. The governor appeared weekly, and the county executive often came in late. Any celebrity who happened to pass through town always wound up here via the recommendations of other celebrities. Stallone was once overheard remarking to a producer: “Preeminent grub.”

“What exactly does being a partner mean, Mom?” Melanie asked.

“It means I share in all the firm’s profits.”

It also meant sharing in all the responsibilities, but Ann wasn’t worried about that. She’d snagged their biggest client, Air National, herself, and had managed to hold on to them twice as long as any other firm. It was a sleazy acknowledgment, but the best thing about representing an irresponsible airline was that they paid any amount to get out of hot water. What partner meant most of all, though, was more delegation, and that meant more time she could spend with Martin and Melanie. From now on it would be the associates who scrambled over interrogatories till 3 a.m. Maybe now things would evolve into the domestic solvency she knew she needed. Maybe now they could be a family.

The maître d’ expertly reeled off the day’s specials and left them to peruse leather bound menus.

“How’re things going at school?” Ann asked.

“Okay,” Melanie meekly replied. Okay meant no D’s on the horizon. She was a smart girl but just couldn’t adjust. Before Martin, she’d been cutting class, failing all her subjects. But then she beamed: “I’m gonna get an A in my art class.”

Art, Jesus, Ann thought. “Melanie, art isn’t going to get you very far in this world.”

“Rembrandt would probably disagree with that statement,” Martin said, and discreetly scowled at her.

“What I mean, honey, is that art doesn’t usually make a good living. Art never sells till after the artist is dead.”

Martin was still scowling. “Your mother’s right, Melanie. Peter Max only makes $500,000 a week. Last year Deniere sold a twelve inch canvas for seventeen million. A person could starve on that kind of money.”

There I go again, Ann thought. Martin’s jovial sarcasm was his way of objecting to Ann’s negativity. What Melanie needed was maternal support, not criticism. More and more she feared Martin was totally right, that Melanie’s maladjustment stemmed from a lack of such support. Ann’s own parents had been infuriated by her decision to attend law school. “Lawyers are sharks, liars,” her mother had said. “It’s not a job for a woman.” “You’ll never cut it as an attorney, Ann. It’s too tough out there,” her father had assured her. Ann doubted that she’d ever been hurt so badly in her life, and now she felt worse. How many times had she hurt Melanie with similar ridicule?

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, but it sounded terribly fake.

Martin quickly changed the subject with more comedy. “What kind of dump is this? No chili dogs on the menu.”

“Don’t worry, dear,” Ann said. “I’m sure they’ll bring your foi gras and Beluga caviar on a hot dog roll if you ask them.”

“They damn well better unless they want me to start tipping tables over. And they better bring me catsup for my fries too. “

Melanie loved it when Martin poked fun at the establishment, or at least where the establishment ate. But Martin turned serious when they deliberated over appetizers. “Jesus.” He leaned forward and whispered. “The poached salmon costs seven bucks. That’s a lot of dough for an appetizer.”

“Don’t worry about it, Martin,” Ann assured. “This is my celebration dinner, remember? Cost is no object.”

“I don’t want an appetizer,” Melanie said. “I’d rather have a beer.”

“You’re too young to drink beer,” Ann reminded her.

Then Martin: “I’ll have the oysters Chesapeake. That’s two bucks cheaper than the salmon.”

Ann didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Would you get the fucking salmon and shut up? she felt like saying. I just got a forty thousand dollar raise today. I think I can handle a seven-dollar appetizer! “I’ll order for everyone,” she said instead. “It’ll save trouble.”

A beautiful redhead took their orders, as robotic attendants brought bread and filled their water glasses. Martin and Melanie chatted about local art shows, during which three different opposition attorneys appeared to congratulate Ann on her partnership. This surprised—even startled—her, the enemy camps acknowledging her success without so much as a hint of jealousy. “You seem to be quite the talk of the local legal world,” Martin suggested when Melanie excused herself to go to the ladies’ room.

“It’s a strange feeling.”

“I’m very happy for you,” he said.

He was, she could tell. So why wasn’t she? Ann felt skewed; making partner still felt numbly distant. Why? “I’ll be home more now,” she said. “I’ll be able to get Melanie off your back a little.”

“Ann, she’s a great kid, she’s no trouble at all. I think she’s really starting to come out of her shell now.”

“No help from me.”

“Would you stop? Everything’s working out great, isn’t it?”

Actually it was. Ann just didn’t understand why she didn’t feel that way herself. Everything was working out.

“Are you all right?”

“What?” she said.

“You look pale all of a sudden.”

Ann tried to shake it off. She felt pale too. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ll snap out of it.”

“You’ve been working too hard,” Martin suggested. “It’s no wonder. And then this nightmare business…”

The nightmare, she thought. The hands on her.

“That’ll work out too—you watch,” Martin said, and sipped his Wild Goose lager. “It’s all stress related. All the hours you put in, plus worrying about Melanie, it gangs up on you. Harold’s a great doctor. I know a bunch of profs at the college who see him. The guy works wonders.”

But was that really the answer to her problem? Ann wasn’t even sure what her problems were. Beyond the great window, the city extended in glittery darkness. The moon suspended above the old post office; it seemed pink. Ann was staring at it. Its gibbous shape fixated her, and its bizarre pinkness.

“Mom, are you okay?” came Melanie’s voice.

Now they were both giving her long looks. “Maybe we should go,” Martin said. “You need to get some rest.”

“I’m fine, really,” she feebled. “Once I eat something, I’ll be fine.”

Ann had to force herself to act normal, but everything distracted her. Subconscious ideas of reference, Dr. Harold had called it. Image symbolization. Even irrelevancies reminded her of the nightmare. The glass candle orb on the table. The pretty hands of the waitress as she set out their appetizers. The fleshy pinkness of Martin’s poached salmon, like the pink flesh of the dream which seemed the same eerie pink as the bulbous moon beyond the window. The moon looked bloated, pregnant.

She was pregnant in the dream. Her belly was stretched huge and pink. Then she saw the faces…

The faceless faces.

“Some guy called you a bunch of times yesterday,” Melanie said. “I asked what he wanted but he wouldn’t say.”

Martin looked up. “Did his voice sound—”

“It sounded creepy, like he had a chest cold maybe.”

The same person Martin had mentioned. “It’s probably somebody selling magazine subscriptions,” Ann attempted. But now her curiosity was festering. She didn’t like the idea of someone calling her and not knowing who or even why.

“Whoever he is, I’m sure he’ll call back,” Martin remarked. “I’m a little curious myself now.”

Ann felt a little better when she got something in her stomach. Her glazed Muscovy duck appetizer had been prepared to perfection, and Martin devoured his poached salmon. But Ann realized that her sudden weird behavior had dampened the entire evening. Melanie and Martin were good sports but it showed. They knew something was wrong. Again, Ann struggled to make conversation, to normalize. “I’ll be able to drive Melanie to school most mornings,” she said, but the fact assailed her. Melanie had been in high school two years now, and Ann didn’t even know what the place looked like. She didn’t even know where it was. Martin had registered Melanie.

“Next week I figure I’ll take her to some of the museums in the District,” Martin said. “Too bad you can’t get off.”

Ann didn’t know what he was talking about. “Museums?”

“Sure, and some of the galleries.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to the National Gallery,” Melanie said.

This observation made Ann feel worse; it was just another thing she’d been promising Melanie for years but had never made good on. Still, though, she didn’t understand. “Martin, how can you take her downtown? She has school.”

Martin tried not to frown at her neglect. “It’s spring break, Ann. I’ve been reminding you for weeks.”

Had he been? God, she thought. She remembered now. It had slipped her mind completely.

“Melanie’s off for the whole week, and so am I,” Martin said.

A vacation, it dawned on her. It would be perfect. “I’m sorry, I forgot all about it. We’ll go someplace, the three of us.”

Martin looked at her funny. She hadn’t had a vacation in years, and in the past, whenever he brought it up, an argument usually resulted. “You serious? They’ll give you a week off just like that?”

“Martin, I’m one of them now. I can take off whenever I want provided everything’s in order.”

Martin looked incredulous, poised over his salmon. “This I don’t believe,” Melanie scoffed. “Mom’s going to take time off? That’s a change.”

“A lot of things are going to change now, honey,” Ann assured her.

Melanie was ecstatic. “I don’t believe it. I’m finally going to get to see the National Gallery and the Corcoran.”

“Since your mother’s talking mighty big now,” Martin added, “maybe she can do you one better. Maybe Giverny. Maybe the Louvre.”

They think I’m bullshitting? Ann couldn’t help but smile. Finally, she could do something for them that involved her. “It’s settled, then,” she stated. “This weekend we leave for Paris.”

Melanie squealed.

“You better check with your bosses first,” Martin suggested. “We don’t want to get our hopes up for nothing.”

“Don’t you understand, Martin? I am one of the bosses now. This’ll be great. Paris. The three of us together. The timing couldn’t be better.”

That much was true. The timing couldn’t have been better. But what Ann Slavik didn’t realize just then was that the circumstances couldn’t have been worse.

—

Chapter 2

They never came to him here. They could, he knew, if they wanted to, but there was no reason. He could still see them in his mind and in his dreams; he was always dreaming of them: their swollen, perfect breasts, their beautiful bodies glazed in sweat and moonlight, their unearthly faces. They were like the drugs he used to take, euphoric, potent without mercy. In his dreams he remembered how he’d cowered before them in the promise of flesh. Five years ago they hadn’t been dreams at all.

The phone rang and rang. No one home, he thought, and hung up. He retrieved his quarter and dime and waited.

“Hurry it up,” Duke complained. “I’m missin’ Ping Pong.”

“Just a few more minutes,” Erik grated. “Please.”

Duke shrugged. “It’ll cost ya, fairy.”

Yeah, he thought. “All right. Five minutes?”

Duke grinned.

Erik Tharp didn’t even care anymore. He was doing what he had to do. “The Rubber Ramada,” the staff called this place. It was the state mental hospital. He’d been locked away, forgotten, but that was good, wasn’t it? The world had forgotten about him now, after five years. But so had they.

They’d never been able to control him as well as the others. They had no use for people they couldn’t control. The kid thing had been a frame; Erik hadn’t done any of it. He’d dug for them, sure, and he’d snatched some people. But he hadn’t murdered those kids.

Duke was another story; he was crazy. Not like the schizoaffectives or the delusional psychotics. He was just plain don’t give a shit, mean ass crazy. Ganser syndrome, it was called, He belonged in prison, not here. He’d made up a story in court about how aliens from the Orion complex communicated through a transmitter that had been implanted in one of his fillings. “The dentist was in on it,” he’d told the judge. “They forced me to do it.” He raped a sixteen year old girl and cut off her arms. “They said they needed the arms,” Duke had informed the jury. “Never said what for, though. Just bring us the arms.” He’d been found not guilty by reason of clinical insanity. In a state like this, Duke would never walk the street again.

But neither would Erik. They’d seen to that.

Erik knew what they were doing. He’d been one of their ilk once. Brygorwreccan. Digger.

I’ve got to get through, he thought.

“You don’t hurry it up, you’ll have to do it twice,” Duke informed him.

There were four classes of patients here. Precaution, Class I, Class II, and Class III. Precautions were restricted to the observation dorm. Mostly autistics and suicidals. Two techs were in the room at all times, and most of the pats remained restrained, either in Posey bed nets or Bard Parker straitjackets. Class I’s couldn’t leave A Building, the main wing; their world was a dorm and a dayroom. But Class II’s got to live in B Building and were allowed to eat in the cafeteria. II’s also enjoyed the luxury of supervised field trips, outside volleyball, and full roam of Buildings B through E. They could go to the rec unit which had a library, a music room, and an automat—provided they signed out with a tech or a Class III patient.

Last week Erik had passed his board review for Class II status. And Duke had been Class III for almost a year.

The two of them made a deal.

Another luxury of the higher class status was that you got to use the pay phone in the rec unit anytime between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. Duke’s deal was this: he’d use his Class III escort privilege to take Erik to the pay phone, and he’d also give him change to make calls. Duke had an uncle who sent him money and cigarettes every month. In the automat II’s and III’s could buy anything they wanted from the machines: microwave sandwiches, candy bars, Cokes. The Diebold magnetometer at the entrance would prevent any sharp metal objects like bottle caps and pop tops from being brought back into the dorm. “So here’s the deal,” Duke had proposed. “One trip to the phone and thirty-five cents per nut.”

The first few times had been awful, but Erik forced himself to get used to it. He had money on the outside, but there was no one to bring it to him. How else could he earn money here? Several times Duke refused to pay. “Not till you get it right, fairy. Keep your lips over the teeth.” Eventually, Erik learned to “get it right.”

“Just ’cause I let you do it,” Duke had once verified, “I don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of faggot. I think about all the chicks I reamed while you’re gettin’ down on it.”

Duke was what the doctors called a “stage sociopath with unipolar hypererotic tendencies.” He bragged about the sex crimes of his past. He’d raped dozens of girls, mostly “bar rednecks and druggers,” he called them.

“Killed a lot of them too.”

“Why?” Erik had queried with his shredded voice.

“Aw, shit, fairy. Killing them’s the best part. Ain’t no kick if ya don’t kill ’em.” He’d cackled laughter. “One time I picked up this skinny blond bitch. I got her in the back of my van, see, and I’m cornholing the shit out of her. Man, she was so fucked up on drugs she didn’t know which way was up; I coulda stuck a leg of lamb up her ass. Anyway, just as I’m gettin’ ready to come, I blow the back of her head off with my Ruger Redhawk.”

“That’s disgusting, man,” Erik replied. “You’re a fuckin’ monster.”

“Look who’s talking,” Duke came back. “You snuff a bunch of babies and you call me a monster. The fact is, bitch, we’re all monsters on the inside.”

It was almost funny the way he’d said that. Erik knew some people who were monsters on the outside as well.

Please be home, he prayed. The change fell into the slot. He held his breath as he dialed.

“Got a big nut for my bitch tonight,” Duke said, and laughed.

The phone was ringing.

Please be home.

—and ringing—

Jesus, please.

Twenty rings later, he hung up. He retrieved the quarter and dime.

“Who you callin’ anyway?”

Destiny, he thought. “Just someone.”

Duke chuckled. “Don’t matter none to me.”

“Listen, Duke, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Fuck talking, fairy. You’re out of time. Ping Pong’s startin’ and you got something to take care of first.”

“It’s important, man. It’s about the lawn contractors.”

“The fuckin’ what?”

“The people who cut the grass. They come out every day with their mowers and do the hospital grounds. They park right out—”

“Quit stallin’, faggot.” Duke shoved him toward the hall. “You’re just tryin’ to get out of the suck.”

They left the rec unit and crossed to B Building via the promenade. It was dark now. Above the trees, Erik could see the moon.

Almost spring, he realized.

The moon was pink.

They signed back in on the ward after walking through the metal detector and passing their change through in a plastic bucket. “No Ping Pong tonight, Duke?” one of the techs asked. Duke was the champ. “I’ll be in. Gotta hang a piss first.” But Erik was already walking down the hall.

“How’s your eye?” Jeff asked. Jeff was a delusional narcomaniac.

“My eye?” Erik grated back.

“Yeah, I saw it hanging out of its socket yesterday. I was concerned that your brain might get infected.”

You had to go along with these people. “Oh, right. It’s fine now. I just popped it right back in.”

“Good, good,” Jeff said, and shuffled away.

Nurse Walsh was tapping up a needle full of chlorpromazine in the med station while a bunch of burly techs four pointed Christofer the hydrophobe. “Four pointing” was just more psych ward rhetoric. “We’ll four point you if you don’t cooperate” was a polite way of saying, “These goons will pin you to the fucking floor if you don’t stop acting like an asshole.” “Tech assisted med administration” was executed when a patient “physically resisted chemical therapy.”

In the dayroom several pats were vegged out on the couch. Ten years of antipsychotics will take the zing out of anyone. All they made Erik take were mild tricyclics, none of the heavy stuff like Stelazine or Prolixin. “Zombie pills,” the pats called them. Many of the heavily drugged patients had to take large doses of Cogentin in conjunction with their psych meds, to offset the accompanying dyskinesia.

He went into the john, into the stall. You could always tell a psych ward bathroom from a normal one: there were never any locks on the stall doors, and the graffiti took diverse turns. “Do the Thorazine shuffle,” someone had written. “God stole my brain but He can have it,” and, “ECT, what a rush!”

Erik sat down and waited. He tried to concentrate on his plan, the lawn contractors, the supervisor, but the ideas kept slipping away. Sometimes he couldn’t think right.

But he could always remember.

Them.

Their sleek bodies, their breasts and legs—all flawless. The things they did to him, and the things they made him do. Blud. Mete. You are the meat of our spirit, Erik. Feed us. They’d consumed him, hadn’t they? With their kisses and their sex?

“Them,” he whispered.

He could still see them clearly as if they were standing before him.

But it was none of them that stood before him now. This was no midnight grove on the holy solstice—this was a psych ward toilet stall. There was none of that; the heralds were gone.

It was Duke who stood before him now. Grinning. Fat. The rasp of the zipper, however familiar, made Erik wince.

“Do it good, fairy, or else it’s no more phone calls…”

«« — »»

Later, Erik sat in his dorm. They were really cells, but they called them dorms. They called the ward a “unit,” and they called drugs “meds.” They called escape “elopement.” They had names for everything. Manacles were “restraints.” Jerking off was “autoerotic manipulation,” and shooting the bull was “vocalization.”

The steel mesh over his window was a “safety barrier.” In the window he could see the moon, and the moon was pink.

The ruckus of Ping Pong could be heard from the dayroom. Someone was playing piano. The television blared inanities.

Erik doodled in his pad. They didn’t call it doodling, of course. They called it “occupational therapy.” He drew fairly well, he was left handed. He’d read that left handed people were three times more likely to be creative. They were also three times more likely to be mentally ill. Something about inverted brain hemispheres, and a bigger corpus callosum, whatever that was. He drew the moon, and figures looking up to it. He drew their bodies to scrupulous detail. What he could never bring himself to sketch, though, were their faces.

It wasn’t that he didn’t remember their faces, it was that he did.

Around the sketch he scribed the glyph. The night mirror, he thought. How many times had he looked into it and seen the most unspeakable things?

My God, he thought, but behind the thought he was sure he heard their warm, viscid laughter, like beating wings, like screams in a canyon.

He looked at the moon. The moon was pink.

Beneath the sketches, and with no conscious thought at all, he scribbled one word:

liloc

—

Chapter 3

The dream was vivid, hot—it always was.

“Dooer, dooer.”

It was always the same: the back arching up and waves of moans. The tense legs spread ever-wide, the swollen belly stretched pinprick tight and pushing…pushing…pushing forth…

Then the image of the cup, like a chalice, and the emblem on its bowl like a squashed double circle.

She sensed flame behind her, a fireplace perhaps. She sensed warmth. Firelight flickered on the pocked brick walls as shadows hovered. A larger version of the emblem seemed suspended in the background, much larger. And again she heard the bizarre words:

“Dooer, dooer.”

She was dreaming of her daughter’s birth, she knew. Birth was painful, yet she felt no pain. All she felt was the wonder of creation, for it was a wonder, wasn’t it? Her own warm belly displacing life into the world? It was a joyous thing.

Joyous, yes. So why did the dream always transform to nightmare?

The figures surrounded her; they seemed cloaked or enshadowed. Soft hands stroked the tense sweating skin. For a time they were all her eyes could focus on. The hands. They caressed her not just in comfort but also—somehow—in adoration. Here was where the dream lost its wonder. Soon the hands grew too ardent. They were fondling her. They stroked the enflamed breasts, the quivering belly. They ran up and down the parted, shining thighs. The belly continued to quiver and push. No faces could be seen, only the hands, but soon heads lowered. Tongues began to lap up the hot sweat which ran in rivulets. Soft lips kissed her eyes, her forehead, her throat. Tongues churned over her clitoris. Voracious mouths sucked milk from her breasts.

The images wrenched her; they were revolting, obscene. Wake up! Wake up! she commanded herself. She could not move. She could not speak.

Her orgasm was obvious, a lewd and clenching irony in time with the very contractions of birth. Behind her she sensed frenzied motion. She heard grunts, moans—

—then screams.

Screams?

But they weren’t her screams, were they?

She glimpsed dim figures tossing bundles onto a crackling fire. Still more figures seemed to wield knives or hatchets. The figures seemed palsied, numb. She heard chopping sounds.

The dream’s eye rose to a high vantage point; the circle moved away. Naked backs clustered about the childbirth table. Now only a lone, hooded shape stood between the spread legs. It looked down, as if in reverence, at the wet, bloated belly. The belly was pink.

Moans rose up, and excited squeals. The firelight danced. The chopping sounds thunked on and on, on and on…

“Dooer, dooer,” spake the hooded shape.

The belly shivered, collapsing.

A baby began to cry.

«« — »»

Ann awoke suddenly, lost of breath. The dream, she thought. The nightmare. She reached blindly for Martin, but he wasn’t there. The digital clock read 4:12 a.m.

Did she always have the dream at the same time, or did she imagine that? Months now, and nearly every night. Beneath her felt sodden, and her mind swam. The dream sickened her, not just the glaring, pornographic imagery, but what it must say about some part of her subconscious. She didn’t like to think like that—she was a lawyer. She didn’t like to contemplate a part of herself that she couldn’t break down, assimilate, and recognize structurally.

She knew the dream was about Melanie’s birth. The abstractions—the bizarre words, the emblem on the chalice and the wall, the firelight, etc.—were what Dr. Harold termed “subconscious detritus.” “Dreams are always outwardly symbolic, Ms. Slavik, subjectivities surrounding a concrete point. The birth of your daughter, in other words, surrounded by encryptions. You’re here to find a means to expose those encryptions, and to identify them, after which we can determine how they relate to the central notion of the dream.”

Ann couldn’t imagine such a notion, but she suspected, quite grimly, that much of this “detritus” was sexual. She’d told Dr. Harold everything about herself that he asked, except one detail. She was having orgasms in her sleep. The wetness, as well as the acute vaginal sensitivity upon waking, left no doubt. Worse was that these “dream orgasms” had proved her only orgasmic release for some time. Martin was by far the best lover of her life, yet she hadn’t had an orgasm with him for as long as she’d been having the nightmare. This worried her very much.

Everything did.

Yuck, she thought, and got up in the darkness. Her nightgown stuck to her, she felt doused in slime, and the coldness of her sweat shriveled her nipples.

She padded down the hall and peeked into her daughter’s room. Melanie lay asleep amid a turmoil of sheets. The sheets were black and so were the walls. “Killing Joke,” one big poster read. Her favorite group. Martin had taken her to see them last year. Ann vowed one day to go to one of these wild concerts with her, but the more she determined to get involved with her daughter’s joys, the more impossible it seemed to achieve. Not trying hard enough, she lamented. She knew this neglect was part of Melanie’s seclusion. Growing up without a father was tough for a kid, and with a mother submerged at work six, sometimes seven days a week made it even tougher. Dr. Harold informed her that Melanie’s “alternative” tastes reflected a “self developed” identity. Most seventeen year olds read Tiger Beat and watched sitcoms. Melanie read Poe and watched Polanski.

Sleepy eyes fluttered open. “Mom?”

“Hi, honey.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Shh. Go back to sleep.”

Melanie shifted under the covers. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too. Go back to sleep.”

Ann closed the door.

She worried too much, she knew that. Melanie was coming of age, and Ann often had a hard time reckoning that. It had caused some awful arguments in the past—Melanie had run away several times, all of which were Ann’s own doing. She lost herself too often. The last time, it had taken Martin two days to find her, while Ann had been in the office working on counterlitigation for Air National. Ann’s success as an attorney haunted her with her failure as a mother.

Tonight she’d promised things would change, but would this prove another failure? To think so would crush her. The trip to Paris would bring them together; it would start the relationship that should’ve started properly seventeen years ago. Too late’s better than nothing, she considered.

Through the living room now, and soft darkness. She stepped into Martin’s moonlit den. The drapes billowed around the open French doors. Indeed, Martin stood on the terrace. Often she’d find him here, in wee hours when he couldn’t sleep, looking down into the city, the water, the docks. Always looking for something. Tonight, though, he stood straight in his robe, staring up at the sky.

“Martin?”

No reply. Staring. He looked sad or confused.

He turned, startled. His cigarette fell. “What’s wrong?”

“I—” she said.

He hugged her at once. “I know. The dream again. You were—”

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t,” he lied. “I just couldn’t sleep. Too much caffeine.”

Suddenly, she was crying. She hated that. His arms encircled her more tightly then. “You can cry,” he whispered. “It’s all right.”

Oh, God, I can’t stand this. She felt out of control, which was her greatest fear. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

He closed the door, sealing out the night, then led her back to the bedroom. Martin hugged her once more at the foot of the bed, and then she was hugging him back, clinging to him as if to a ledge. He was a ledge. He was the only thing that kept her from dropping into blackness.

“I love you,” he said. “Everything will be all right.”

My whole life is falling apart, she thought.

His robe fell to the floor. He crawled into bed with her and covered her up, then draped an arm about her. That vital contact, his warm body against hers, was all that made her feel safe from herself.

“I love you,” he said.

But the safety was false. In a moment she fell back to sleep, and back into the bowels of the dream.

«« — »»

“I was sick. The doctor said I almost died.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Harold observed. He chuckled. “I mean, it’s not interesting that you almost died. The parallel, I mean.”

“Parallel?” Ann asked.

Dr. Herman Harold’s office looked more like a rich man’s study. It was darkly appointed in fine paneling, oak and cherry furniture, plush dark carpet. High bookcases consumed one entire wall, their shelves curiously lacking psychiatric texts. Instead, tomes of classic literature filled the cases. Only a single copy of The American Journal of Psychiatry gave any clue that this was a headshrinker’s office. No proverbial couch could be found.

“I’ve told you, dreams mix symbols with our outward, objective concerns. Here, the symbol is obvious.”

Was it? “I’m a lawyer,” Ann stated. “Lawyers think concretely.”

Dr. Harold’s eyes always appeared bemused. He had a pleasant face with snow white hair, and big bushy white eyebrows and a bushier white mustache. He spoke slowly, contemplatively, placing words like bricks in a wall. “The symbolic duality,” he said. “Life and death. The notion that you almost died while creating life. The proximity of utter extremes.”

Life and death, she thought. “It was borderline pneumonia or something like that. Thank God Melanie was okay. I was barely conscious for about two weeks after the birth.”

“What do you remember of the birth?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s pretty clear, then, that the dream is dredging up aspects of Melanie’s birth that were infused into your subconscious mind. Think of it as a spillover, from the subconscious into the conscious. We call it ‘composite imagery.’ Your mind is trying to form a real picture of Melanie’s birth with unacknowledged memory fragments.”

“Why?” Ann asked.

“Why isn’t nearly as important as why now. Why is this occurring at this precise point in your life? Let me ask you, was Melanie a planned pregnancy?”

“Yes and no. We wanted a child, that is.”

“You had no reservations, in other words?”

“No, I didn’t. I think my husband did. He didn’t think we could afford to have a child, and I’ll admit, things were pretty tight. He never made much money, I was young, nineteen, I was pregnant in my first year of college, and I was determined to go to law school afterward. I think maybe one reason I wanted a child was because I thought it would make our marriage stronger.”

“You considered your marriage weak?”

“Yeah. I honestly wanted it to work, but now that I think of it, I guess I wanted it to work for the wrong reasons.”

Dr. Harold raised a bushy white brow.

“I don’t like failure,” Ann said. “Mark and I probably never should have gotten married. My parents couldn’t stand him, they were convinced the marriage would fail, and I suppose that fueled my own determination to see that it didn’t. They were also convinced that I’d never make it through law school. Their discouragement was probably my greatest motivating factor. I graduated third in my class. I waited tables at night, went to school during the day. I missed a semester of college to have Melanie, but I made up for it and then some by taking a heavier credit load afterward. In fact, I graduated a year early even with the missed semester.”

“Impressive,” Dr. Harold remarked. “But I’m more interested in your parents. You’ve never mentioned them before.”

“They’re a bit of a sore subject,” Ann admitted. “They’re very old fashioned. They wanted me to assume a traditional female role in life, clean the house, raise the kids, cook, while hubby brought home the bacon. That’s not for me. They never supported my desires and my views, and that hurt a lot.”

“Do you see them often?”

“Once every couple of years. I take Melanie up, they love Melanie. She’s really the only bond at all that exists between me and my parents.”

“Are you on good terms with them now?”

“Not good, not bad. Things are much better between me and Dad than me and Mom. She’s a very overbearing woman. I think a lot of the time, Dad was all for my endeavors but he was afraid to express that because of her.”

Dr. Harold leaned back behind the plush veneered desk. “Another parallel, a parental one.”

Ann didn’t see what he meant.

“There’s a lot of guilt in you, Ann. You feel guilty that you’ve put your job before your daughter because you feel that in doing the opposite, you’d satisfy your parents’ convictions of occupational failure. More important, you feel guilty about neglecting to support Melanie’s social views. Your own mother neglected to support your social views. You’re afraid of becoming your mother.”

Ann wasn’t sure if she could buy that. Nevertheless, she felt stupid for not considering the possibility.

“Since the day you left home, you’ve been torn between opposites. You want to be right in the traditional sense, and you want to be right for yourself. You want both ends of the spectrum.”

Was that it?

“You’re very unhappy,” Dr. Harold said.

I know, she thought. It depressed her that he could read her so easily. “I need a solution,” she said. “The nightmare is ruining me. I’m not getting enough sleep, my work is slipping, I’m in a bad mood when I get home. Don’t you guys have some wonder drug I could take that would make the nightmare stop?”

“Yes,” Dr. Harold said. “But that wouldn’t solve any of your problems; it would only cover them up. You’re having the nightmare for a reason. We must identify that reason.”

Dr. Harold was right. There was no quick fix.

“How is Martin taking all of this?”

“Better than most guys would. I know it’s hard on him. He’s not getting any sleep either, because I’m always waking him up during the dream. He’s pretending that it’s no big deal, but it’s starting to show.”

“More fear.”

“What?”

“More fear of failure. You’re afraid of failing with Melanie, and you’re afraid of failing with him. You’re afraid at the end of your life all you’ll have to show for your existence is selfishness.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m merely being objective. You love Martin, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said with no hesitation. “I’d do anything for him.”

“Anything except marry him. Still more fear.”

Jesus Christ! she thought.

Dr. Harold smiled, as if he’d read the thought. “You’re afraid that Martin thinks you’re holding your first marriage against him.”

“He’s suggested that himself. Is it true?”

“It seems to be quite true.”

This was depressing. Coming here didn’t make her feet better, it made her feel worse. “What am I going to do?”

“The first thing you must do is be patient. You’re a very complex person. Understanding your problems will be a complex affair.”

Tell me something I don’t know, Doc.

“The images and ideas expressed in dreams function in two fundamental modes,” Dr. Harold went on. “One, the manifest mode, which relates to the content as it occurs to the dreamer, and, two, the latent mode, the dream’s hidden or symbolic qualities. The dream is about you giving birth to Melanie. There’s a strange emblem in the dream, there’re dark, hooded figures and cryptic words like incantations. The dream sounds almost satanic. Dreams of devils often signify a rebellion to Christianity. Are you a Christian?”

“No,” Ann said.

Dr. Harold smiled. “Are you a satanist?”

“Of course not. I’m not anything, really.”

“You’re saying you were raised with no religious beliefs at all?”

“None.”

“Don’t you find that strange, especially with the traditional sentiments of your parents?”

“It is strange,” she agreed. “I was born and raised in Lockwood, a small town up in the northern edge of the county, up in the hills. Only about five hundred people in the entire town. There was a big church, everyone attended every Sunday. Except my parents. It was almost like they deliberately shielded me from religion. They kept me blind to it. I really don’t know much about religion.”

“What about your daughter?”

“The same. I try not to influence her that way. I wouldn’t know how to even raise the subject.”

Dr. Harold contemplated this. He remained silent for some time, looking up with his eyes closed. “The dream is definitely about an array of subconscious guilt. How can you feel guilty about a religious void when you’ve had virtually no religious upbringing?”

“I don’t,” Ann stated.

“And you don’t feel that a religious belief might help Melanie become better rounded in life?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t see how it could. She’s never been a problem that way.”

“Is she a virgin?”

The question stunned her. “Yes,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be, I suppose.”

“Do you find that unusual?”

“Why should I?”

“The average first sexual experience for white females in this country occurs at the age of seventeen. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.” Ann, see if you can guess the next question.

“How old were you when you had your first sexual experience?”

“Seventeen,” Ann replied, though None of your fucking business would’ve been a better reply. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Isn’t it possible that you possess some subconscious concern regarding your daughter’s virginity?”

Ann’s frown cut lines in her face. She didn’t like all this Freudian stuff. Innuendoes were hard to defend against, especially sexual innuendoes. “I can’t see why.”

“Of course you can’t,” Dr. Harold said, still smiling. What did he mean by that? Then he asked, a bit too abruptly for Ann’s liking, “Have you ever had a lesbian experience?”

“Of course not.”

“Have you ever wanted to?”

“No.” I’m getting pissed, she thought. Really pissed, Doc.

“You’re sure?”

Ann blushed. “Yes, I’m sure,” she nearly snapped.

“The dream is rife with overt sexual overtones, that’s the only reason I ask such questions. What is the word you keep hearing in the dream?”

“Dooer,” she said, pronouncing doo-er. “What’s it mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s your dream, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, and what might it, or any of the dream, have to do with lesbianism?” Now the lawyer in her was making an interrogatory that she knew he couldn’t answer.

But he did answer it, by making her answer it. “The voice that spoke the word— dooer—was it male or female?”

“Female. I already told you.”

“And the figures around the birth table, the figures touching you, caressing you, were—”

“All right, yes, they were female.” That’s what I get for trying to play games with a shrink, she thought.

His next observations disturbed her most of all. “It’s interesting that you take such aversion to questions pertaining to lesbianism, or potential lesbianism. It’s interesting, too, that you are now exhibiting a guilt complex about that.”

“I’m not a lesbian,” she said.

“I’m quite sure that you’re not, but you’re afraid that I might think you are.”

“How do you know?”

“I know a lot of things, Ann. I know a lot of things just by looking at you, by assessing the way you structure your replies, by your facial inflections, your body language, and so forth.”

“I think you’re grabbing for shit, Doc.”

“Perhaps, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a psychiatrist has been accused as such. What I mean is that no mode of rapport between a doctor and a patient is more important than openness.”

“You think I’m not being completely open with you?”

“No, Ann, I don’t.”

How about if I gave that big mustache of yours a good hard yank? Would that be sufficient proof of openness?

“You’re outwardly rebellious and defensive, which is a sure sign of a deep sensitivity. You haven’t been fully open to me about the dream, have you?”

Of course she hadn’t. But what was she supposed to say?

“Are there any men in the dream, Ann?”

“I think so. At least, there seem to be men in the background, chopping things, chopping wood, I think. They seem to be throwing wood on a fire.”

“Wood. On a fire. But you say the men are in the background?”

“Yes,” she said.

“And the figures in the foreground are women?”

“Yes.”

“And who is the center of attention to these women?”

“Me.”

“You. Naked. Pregnant. On the birth table.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you find it interesting that the active participants of the dream are women, while men remain in the background, clearly symbolizing a subordinate role?”

“I plead the Fifth,” Ann said. Dr. Harold was boxing her in now, cornering her. It made her feel on guard. Moreover, it made her feel stupid, because she didn’t know what he was driving at. “A minute ago you said you didn’t think I’d been completely open with you about the dream. How so?”

“My conclusions will make you mad.”

“Hey, Doc, I’m already mad. Go ahead. Lawyers don’t like to be accused of withholding information.”

“But they do, don’t they? Isn’t that part of the trade? Withholding facts from the opposition?”

“I’m leaving,” Ann said.

“Don’t leave yet,” Dr. Harold said, lightly laughing. “We’re just beginning to get somewhere.”

Ann stalled. Her head felt like it was ticking.

“First, I’m not the opposition,” Dr. Harold asserted. “Second, I make references that trouble you because being troubled is a demonstration of the very subconscious underpinnings that have recently made you feel unfocused and confused.”

Ann didn’t care about any of that now. She wanted to know what he was going to say. “What? What conclusions? What is it you feel I haven’t told you?”

“You already know.”

Ann’s eyes bore into him. But, again, he was right, wasn’t he? She did already know.

“Tell me,” she said.

“What you haven’t admitted to me is that the dream aroused you. Outwardly, you were repelled, but inwardly, you were stimulated. You were stimulated sexually. Am I right or wrong?”

Stonily, she answered, “You’re right.”

“You were aroused and you had an orgasm. Right or wrong?”

Her throat felt dry. “Right.”

She’d told him neither of these facts, yet he knew them. Somehow she suspected he knew them on her first visit three weeks ago. The man was a walking lie-detector.

“Are you experiencing an orgasmic dysfunction at home, with Martin?”

Now Ann laughed, bitterly. What difference would it make? “Yeah,” she said. “Sex has never been a problem for me. I’ve always been…orgasmic. Until now. Since I’ve been having this nightmare, I haven’t had an orgasm with Martin.”

“But you do have an orgasm in the dream?”

“Yes, every time.”

“You’re afraid that an aspect of your past will ruin your future.”

The words seemed echoed, hovering about her head. Is that what the dream meant? And if so, what aspect of her past?

Dr. Harold went on, “Do you—”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Ann said. “I really don’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m upset.”

“There are times when being upset is good.”

“I don’t feel very good right now.”

“You have a lot of fixations, the most paramount of which is a fear of seeming weak to others. You associate being upset with being weak. It’s not, though. In being upset, you’re releasing a part of yourself that you’ve kept hidden. That’s an essential element of effective therapy. The exposure of our fears, the release of what we keep hidden. It helps us see ourselves in such a way that we can understand ourselves. When we don’t understand ourselves, we don’t understand the world, the people around us, what we want and what we have to do—we don’t understand anything.”

I understand that I need a drink, she thought.

“I think that it’s important for you to continue coming here,” he said.

She nodded.

“One more question, then I’ll let you go for today.” Dr. Harold unconsciously stroked his mustache. “What makes you certain that you’re giving birth to Melanie in the dream? You said that you were very ill, and that you remained barely conscious for several weeks after the birth. What makes you—”

“The setting,” she said. “All I see of myself in the dream is my body. It’s almost like a movie, going from cut to cut. I never even really see myself, but I feel things and I see things around me. The cinder block walls and earthen floor—it’s the fruit cellar at my parents’ house.”

“Melanie was born in a fruit cellar?”

“Yes. There’s no hospital in Lockwood, just a resident doctor. I went into labor early, and there was a bad storm, a hurricane warning or something, so they took me down into the fruit cellar where it would be safer.”

“And this strange emblem, the one on the chalice and the larger one on the wall, was there anything in the fruit cellar that reminded you of that?”

“No,” she said. “It’s just a normal fruit cellar. My mother cans and jars her own fruits and vegetables.”

Dr. Harold pushed a pad and pencil across his big desk. “Draw the emblem for me please.”

She felt sapped, and the last thing she wanted to do was draw. Quickly, she outlined the emblem, the warped double circle on the pad.

Dr. Harold didn’t look at it when he took the pad back. “So you’re off—where is it? To Paris?”

Ann smiled genuinely for the first time. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ve just got a few things to wrap up at the office this afternoon, then I’m picking up the tickets. Melanie’s an art enthusiast, she’s always wanted to see the Louvre. It’ll be the first time the three of us have been away together in years.”

“I think it’s important for you to be with Martin and Melanie on a leisure basis. It’ll give you a chance to get reacquainted with yourself.”

“Maybe the dream will go away for a while,” she said, almost wistfully.

“Perhaps, but even if it doesn’t, don’t dwell on it. And we’ll talk about how you feel when you get back.”

“Okay,” she said.

“I hope you have a wonderful time. Feel free to call me if you have any problems or concerns.”

“Sure. Bye.”

Ann left the office.

«« — »»

Dr. Harold sat in silence. He closed his eyes, thinking. He thought about her. Type A, occupationally obsessive, sexually dysfunctional. Dream methodizing, he thought. The emblem she’d drawn on the pad looked scrambled, dashed. Kinesthetically, it was obvious: she’d drawn it hurriedly because it scared her. He knew that a lot of things scared Ann Slavik.

An awful lot of things.

—

Chapter 4

“So what happened?” Duke asked. “You never said.”

Erik finished his Macke cheese dog. He always ladled them with onions—the kind that came in the little tubes—to get the taste out of his mouth. Not the taste of the cheese dog, the taste of Duke.

“What happened what?” Erik asked.

“You know, your voice. How come your voice is so fucked up?”

Suddenly, he tasted memory, salt and copper. Blood. He’d tried to break away from them several times. They hadn’t liked it.

We offer you everything, Erik. And still you rebel.

That had been weeks before the police had caught him. Holy Mother of God, Chief Bard had said, staring into the pit. They all called him “Chief Lard”; he had a belly like a medicine ball. Rumor was he’d been chief of some town in Maryland; a state sting operation had caught him laundering mob money through the town bingo games at the fire hall. They’d told him he could be prosecuted or he could move on quietly. It had been Bard and Byron who’d caught Erik that night. Whatchoo doin’ with that shovel, boy? Byron had demanded. Holy Mother of God, Bard had said.

Erik knew he had been set up. They no longer trusted him.

We love you, Erik, one of them had whispered.

We want you to be good, whispered the other.

So we’re going to give you a little reminder.

So that whenever you talk, you’ll think of us.

They’d tied him down. The one had been blowing him while the other went to work on his throat. The doctor at the emergency room had said that he only had one vocal cord left. He was lucky to have lived.

“A scratch awl,” Erik finally answered Duke. “They stuck a scratch awl in my throat.”

“Christ,” Duke muttered. “Who’s they?”

“Muggers,” Erik lied. That’s what he’d told the people at the hospital and the police. That muggers had done it.

Duke picked his nose. “Bummer.”

The girl named Dawn walked in, approached the candy machine without looking at them. She’d recently made Class III status too. Duke chuckled under his breath. They’d heard Dr. Greene talking to one of the techs about her. “Katasexual,” he’d said. “Sexual obsession with a dead person.” Erik had heard that before they got her on the right medication, she would masturbate ten times a day. There were a lot of winners on the ward. The three hundred pound schizophrenic who claimed she was pregnant by her collie. “I’m going to give Dr. Greene the pick of the litter!” she’d rejoiced. One night the city police had brought in a raving PCP overdose. “I can fly anything that God can make!” he’d informed them as he strapped him into a jacket. Lots of the pats had religious fixations. Many were hypersexual yet devoutly religious, like the prostitute who was “tricking for Jesus,” or the unipolar serial killer they’d brought in from Tylersville who forced women to accept Christ as their savior and then killed them before they could change their minds. “Lotta people in heaven who wouldn’t be if it weren’t for me,” he’d bragged.

“God loves you,” Dawn turned with a Snickers and said to Duke.

“If He does, tell Him to let me the fuck out of this dump, you floppy tit psycho bitch. How about sucking my balls?”

Dawn hmmffed and left.

“Fizzlehead!”

Erik tried the phone again. No answer. Where are they? he wondered. “See, that’s how I know I ain’t queer,” Duke was analyzing himself when Erik returned. “That fizzlehead there? I could have her right on this table. Boy, I could tear her up.”

Erik didn’t need to be convinced. He was thinking. Duke was a fat, disgusting sociopathic slob with bad teeth and hair like a mop. But he’s strong, Erik thought. Three times a week the techs took all Class II’s and III’s to the gym in the other building. Erik had seen Duke bench press 250lbs ten times. Yeah, real strong, he mused.

“I been thinking, Duke,” Erik’s ruined voice grated.

“About what, faggot?”

“You and me, we’ll never get out of here. Greene’s review board wouldn’t okay us for the street in a hundred years.”

“I know that.”

Erik leaned over the table. “I got something I gotta take care of, on the outside.”

“What, kill more babies?”

“I never killed any babies. It was a setup—”

“Sure, faggot. That’s what they all say, ain’t it? Just like I never chopped the arms off that bimbo.”

“Would you listen to me, goddamn it. I think I know a way we can get out.”

Suddenly, Duke was listening.

Erik took Duke to the window, pointed out the “safety barrier.” A high fence surrounded the hospital grounds, yet beyond was a parking lot where the staff and contractors parked their cars. “See that white van?” Erik asked. “And the pickup trucks beside it?”

Letters on the van read “Lawn King.” “Big deal,” Duke remarked.

“They’re groundskeepers. I’ve been watching them. They get here every morning at seven thirty and start cutting the grass. The hospital grounds are huge, these guys are all over the place. They don’t have to come in and out the front gate ’cause the trailers they haul their lawn mowers on are too big. There’s a service gate, right over there behind those trees. If we can get past that gate, we can drive out the main entrance.”

“In what? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?”

“In one of their trucks. See all those pickups parked next to the van? They belong to the crew.”

“Awright. Keep talking.”

“At eleven thirty they start breaking for lunch. They break for lunch in four shifts, three at a time. They get to the parking lot through the service gate. The supervisor has to let them out. He’s the only one authorized to have the key to the service gate. See that guy there? He’s the supervisor.”

Duke peered through the wire window. Several workers were fueling tractors which hauled the cutting platforms. A man in overalls stood in attendance. He was tall. Broad shoulders and back. Knurly.

“Big fucker,” Duke commented.

“Yeah, but so are you.”

Duke continued to peer out the window.

“I’ve been watching him regular,” Erik grated on. It hurt just to talk. “He’s got a routine. They start breaking for lunch at eleven thirty, like I said. But at eleven he eats his own lunch. He doesn’t leave like the others—he brings his own in a bag. That’s what he does every day at eleven. He sits down by those trees all by himself and eats his lunch.”

Very slowly, Duke nodded.

“No one else is around. All the workers are still out on the grounds cutting the grass. And this guy, like I said, I been watching him. He’s the boss, so he’s the first guy out here every morning at seven thirty. He drives that blue and white Ford pickup right there. We wouldn’t have to waste time looking for which truck is his ’cause we already know.”

“But the gate, the service gate. I don’t even see it.”

“That’s why this’ll work,” Erik came back. “You can’t see the service gate from the grounds because it’s behind those trees, the same trees where that big guy sits and eats his lunch every day at eleven o’clock.”

“Eleven o’clock,” Duke murmured.

“That’s an hour from now. And you know what we’re doing an hour from now?”

“What?”

“The techs are taking our whole wing outside for volleyball.”

«« — »»

Duke had his duties down pat. II’s and III’s achieved their privileged status by demonstrating good behavior for protracted periods. Nothing ever happened because no one ever expected it to. Three techs supervised the volleyball games: Nurse Dallion, who was so thin she looked like she might blow away, and Charlie and Mike. They would have to take all three of them out before someone could get back inside and hit the security button. Mike would be tough—most of the male techs were hired for physical size, and Mike was young and strong—but not stronger than Duke. And Charlie, the black guy, was huge. Erik figured they had maybe two minutes after the fight broke out to overpower the lawn supervisor, get his keys, unlock the service gate, and take off in the pickup. Duke’s job was to take out Mike quickly, then get over to the trees, while Erik took out Nurse Dallion and Charlie. Though Charlie was big, he was also hopelessly myopic. Without his soda bottle lens glasses, he couldn’t see past his face.

It was sunny out and warm. Spring was just days away.

“Great day for volleyball,” Erik grated to Charlie.

“Sure is. Glad to see you’re playing for a change, Erik. Do ya good to get out with the others.”

Yeah, he thought. He glanced behind him as they chose up sides. At four minutes past eleven, the lawn supervisor was walking down the hills, toward the trees.

“Chad’s a faggot,” Duke barked. “I don’t want him on my side.”

“Enough of that, Duke,” Mike warned. “We’re all here to have fun.”

“Fuck fun, I wanna win.”

“I’m no faggot,” Chad complained.

“Come on, folks,” Charlie said. “Let’s get playing.”

What a clusterfuck, Erik thought once they started going. Many of the pats were extrapyramidal, a neurological side effect of long term phenothiazine therapy. Slow. Uncoordinated. Twitchy. One of the girls served and the ball didn’t make it over the net.

“My turn, thank God,” Duke said, and batted the ball across. It went back and forth maybe twice before Harry the sterraphobe knocked it into the net.

“Jesus to Pete,” Duke complained. “Can’t any of you faggots play?”

“I’m telling you, Duke. Any more comments like that and you’re back inside,” Mike told him, standing aside.

“Your turn to serve, Erik,” Nurse Dallion pointed out. They rotated. Erik took the ball.

“Come on, Erik, let’s see a good one,” Charlie said, and clapped.

“Aw, Erik can’t serve for dick,” Duke yelled. “He’s a faggot too, just like all of ya. Just like Chad.”

“I’m no fag!” Chad yelled, fists clenched at his sides.

“Shit, you suck your daddy’s dick. He told me so last time he came to visit.”

“He did not!”

Dawn started crying. “I can’t play!” she screamed. “Not while Duke’s here!”

“You go down on your mother, fizzlehead,” Duke guffawed, and rubbed his crotch. “Why don’t you just shut up and suck my knob, huh?”

“That’s it, Duke.” Mike gave him a shove. “Inside.”

Erik, still holding the ball, nodded.

“I fucked your girlfriend,” Duke reported to Mike. “I ever tell you that?”

Nurse Dallion commanded, “Get him inside, Mike. He’s ruining this for everyone.”

“She wasn’t nearly as good as Nurse Dallion, though.” Duke busted out a laugh. “Yeah, Nurse Dallion, she can suck a good one. Suck your balls right out your dickhole.”

Dawn sat down on the grass, bawling. Several other pats began to wander. Mike grabbed Duke by the collar and began escorting him off the field. “You just lost your Class III, Duke.”

“Shag my balls, queer. Your girlfriend licks my crack.”

“Now!” Erik yelled.

Duke lunged, then rammed his elbow back into Mike’s throat. Simultaneously, Erik rocketed the volleyball into Charlie’s face. Nurse Dallion was running up: “Erik, what are you—”

“Sorry,” he said. He really was, because Nurse Dallion was nice. He slugged the heel of his palm right into her forehead. Suddenly, the pats were running all over the place. Erik glimpsed figures dashing. Duke was stomping Mike’s face, then breaking. “Motherfuckers!” Charlie yelled. Erik had time to palm heel Nurse Dallion in the head again, and that was it for her. Charlie grabbed him, lifted him up, and Erik spun. He raked Charlie’s glasses off, kicked him in the groin, then stomped on the glasses. They crunched.

Charlie’s teeth were gritted in pain. One hand held his groin, the other reached out. “I’m sorry,” Erik grated, and kicked him in the head.

Erik broke for the trees.

Two minutes, he told himself. If we’re lucky.

Mike, Charlie, and Nurse Dallion were all out cold. The pats fled every which way. “Fly, Fleance! Fly!” Harry the sterraphobe quoted Shakespeare. Dawn was still blubbering in the grass, while Chad shouted to the sky, “I’m no fag!” as he urinated on the net post.

Erik disappeared behind the stand of trees.

“I took care of this big fucker sure as shit,” Duke was gloating. The lawn super lay limp. Duke pulled two clumps of keys out of the guy’s overalls, and his wallet.

“Jesus Christ!” Erik yelled. “You killed the guy!”

Duke looked up, disinterested. The supervisor’s neck was broken. Erik grabbed the keys and gratingly shouted, “Come on!”

The lock on the service gate was a big Rollings Mark IV with a tubular keyway. Erik fished out the only tubular key on the ring; the big lock snapped open instantly.

This is too easy, he considered. “Walk,” he whispered to Duke. “Walk normal. We’re just two lawn guys walking to our truck.”

Duke loped along beside him, whistling “Hail to the Redskins.” The Ford keys had black plastic shrouds; Erik isolated them at once. Ten seconds later they were pulling the big pickup out of the lot.

“Shit yeah!” Duke exclaimed. “The faggot was right! We’re out of this shithole!”

“We’re not out yet,” Erik reminded him. “We still have the main entrance to get by, and the security guards.”

“Those creamcakes? I’ll bust all their heads.”

“You shouldn’t have killed that guy.”

“Fuck him. Killed Mike too, the faggot. Heard his windpipe crunch.” Duke laughed. “Sounded like steppin’ on walnuts.”

Jesus, Erik thought. “Get ready to talk,” he grated. “I can’t talk, so you’re going to have to.”

This was what would make or break them; Erik doubted Duke’s expertise at method acting. Quickly, Erik opened the super’s wallet. “Phillip Alan Richards,” read the name on the driver’s license. In the back of the pickup were several five-gallon gas cans. “Tell them we’re making a fuel run for Mr. Richards,” he said.

“Fuel run, sure.”

The guard at the entrance stopped them. The gate was down. Shit, Erik thought. He might have to drive through. He might have to kill the guard, and he didn’t want to do that.

“We’re makin’ a fuel run for Mr. Richards,” Duke said. “Lawn King.”

The guard nodded. He handed Erik a clipboard through the window. A sign out log, Erik thought. He scribbled a name, wrote the time in the Out column, then paused. Tag Number, the next column requested. His eyes scanned up the sheet, found the name Richards signed in at 7:23 a.m., put the following tag number in his column, then passed the clipboard back to the guard. The guard glanced into the pickup bed. Then he glanced in the cab again.

“Later, guys.” He raised the gate and waved them on.

Erik pulled through. Slow, he thought. Normal. A moment later he heard the phone ringing in the guard booth. Erik turned the pickup truck off the court and onto the main road.

Ten seconds later the elopement alarm began to blare at the hospital.

Erik pressed the accelerator to the floor.

—

Chapter 5

The old man saw horror in his mind. He saw them.

He saw them naked, praying before their blasphemous slab.

He saw their open faces, their soft hands reaching out—for something. What? The sound of their incantations made him sick, but not nearly as sick as the things they’d made him do. Scieror, they’d dubbed him—a cutter. Bring us ælmesse. Wîhan to this pig.

He couldn’t resist them, none of them could. He’d been good with the cnif, a master; the sensation defied description. To flense a woman, to fillet a man. Once they’d made him cut off a girl’s head and bleed her into the chettle. Broo for the cuppe! and they’d laughed, drinking. Then they’d made him watch as several wreccans had fornicated with the corpse.

Give lof! they’d cry. Give lof!

Others stoked the fire, for smaller and more potent lof.

He’d even eaten with them.

“Don’t worry, dear,” came the wifmunuc’s soft voice now. “This will make you feel better.”

“No, please.” They’re killing me, he thought.

Several figures surrounded him. He lay paralyzed on the bed. They’d been doing this to him for weeks now—he felt more dead every day. Several of the younger ones looked on from behind, their faces bright in wonder, their naked bodies glowing in youth. But he was wizened now, shriveled like a dried fruit.

“You’re sure this is safe?”

A man’s voice replied, “Quite sure. It merely retards the heart rate for a time and restricts the cerebral blood vessels. The brain damage will be minor but significant enough to produce the desired effects.”

“Good. Just don’t kill him.”

A needle jabbed his arm. A cold rush.

From her black mentel, the wifmunuc extended her hand. “Come, girls. You may come and touch.”

They approached timidly at first, then scampered forward. Their small breasts bobbed as they leaned over. When the syringe was retracted, one licked the blood off the puncture. Soon the hands roved his old skin. They giggled.

“It’s providence,” whispered the wifmunuc. “What a wondrous thing, yes? To lay our hands upon the flesh of providence.”

The girls seemed awed. They were finicking with him, like an animal at a petting zoo. I’m a showpiece, he thought as his vision darkened. The room felt warm, his blood turned to sludge. He shuddered as a soft hand gently squeezed his genitals.

“No, honey, you mustn’t do that. He’s a very special hüsl.”

The hand slipped away.

Just let me die, the old man thought. But they wouldn’t do that. They’d kill him, instead, day to day, a piece at a time. Now he could scarcely see at all.

Worse were the things he saw in his mind.

Just let me die and go to hell.

“Enough,” came the wifmunuc’s maternal voice. “We mustn’t get him too excited.”

“Such lovely girls,” commented the male voice.

“Yes, aren’t they?”

The hands drifted away. The young figures stepped back.

“The doefolmon comes soon,” elated the wifmunuc. “You can play tonight, if you like.”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed one.

“We’d like that!” exclaimed another.

“But you must eat first, for sustenance. Let us go and eat now.”

The wifmunuc took the group of girls out of the room.

“Why are you doing this to me?” the old man managed to rasp.

The male figure turned. “Oh, come on, don’t be like that. Like she said, it’s providence, and you’re part of it. We all are. It’s a privilege.”

He closed the bag he’d brought his needles and poisons in.

“Good night, old friend,” he said.

The old man began to convulse.

«« — »»

Erik watched the rearview. “First off, we dump the truck.”

“Huh?” Duke asked.

“They know what we’re driving,” Erik’s voice grated. “You can bet they got an APB out on this truck. If we don’t get rid of it right now, we’re dead meat.”

Duke didn’t seem interested; he was rummaging through the lawn super’s wallet. “Shit,” he spat. “All the motherfucker had on him was six bucks. We need money, man.”

“We can get money later. I got a stash.”

Duke glanced over. “Whadaya mean?”

Erik had abducted a lot of people for them, for their hideous hüslfeks. Most were runaways and drifters, but every now and then he’d run into someone with some money. Erik always took the money. For the years he’d served them, he’d socked away at least a thousand dollars. He kept it in the church basement with his things.

“Just don’t worry about it. I got all the money we need hidden back where I used to live.”

“That where we’re headed?”

“Yeah. Little town called Lockwood, half hour’s drive.

Suddenly, Duke beamed; in the glove box he found a big sheath knife. “A Gerber. Sort of like the one I used to have.”

This was not good. An escaped erotomanic sociopath with a knife probably did not add up to anything cheery. Erik knew he’d have to be very careful. “Listen, Duke, you can’t be pulling any crazy shit right now. You start up any of that and we’ve had it. We’ll be four pointed in the precaution unit for the next decade.”

Duke didn’t like to be told what to do. “No, you listen to me, fairy. I don’t take orders from no one, ’specially a baby killer faggot like you. We wouldn’t even be outta that shithole if it wasn’t that I had the balls to bust up those two cocksuckers. I haven’t seen the street since fucking Reagan was President. I’m gonna have me some fun, and no one’s gonna stop me, and if you don’t like it, just say so.” Duke was fingering the knife, glaring.

Careful, careful. “I hear you, Duke. Relax. All I’m saying is we gotta be real careful from here on. You can have your fun, just careful like, okay?”

“Yeah. Careful like.”

“And since I know these parts better than you, it’s probably a better idea we do things the way I see them. I know all the back roads, all the towns. Okay?”

“Sure. You’re the brains, I’m the balls. That’s fine by me. Just so long as we got an understanding.”

Thank God, Erik thought.

Another thing in their favor was that Class II’s and III’s got to wear regular clothes, not hospital linens. But they still had faces.

“Another thing we gotta change is the way we look. Cut our hair, dye it, stuff like that. And it’s probably a good idea for you to lose those sideburns.”

Duke forlornly stroked said muttonchops. “Yeah, guess you’re right. Cocksuckers’ll have our pictures all over the papers tomorrow.”

“And probably TV by tonight. But like I said, first thing we gotta get a new set of wheels.”

“Convenience store,” Duke offered his wisdom. “I used to snatch cars at convenience stores all the time. Most people figure they’ll be in and out real fast, so lots of ’em leave the keys in the ignition.”

Good idea, but it had too many flaws. “We can’t just take a car, Duke. If all we do is take a car, the owner will know right off and call the police. The cops’ll know what kind of car to be on the lookout for, which is the same problem we got right now.”

Duke’s sharp smile showed his understanding of the situation.

Erik went on, “So that means we gotta take the owner too. And we gotta do it so no one else sees. If there are no witnesses, there’ll be no one to tell the cops what kind of car we took.”

“And would ya looky there!” Duke exclaimed.

Just ahead the sign loomed: Qwik Stop.

Erik pulled the pickup around back by the dumpster where it couldn’t be seen from the main road. Two cars had been parked out front, a muddy Dodge Colt and an old beige Plymouth station wagon.

“Two cars out front,” Erik observed. “That means one customer in the store. The second car belongs to whoever’s working the register. Here’s what we do. We walk in like we’re looking for something, wait for the customer to leave. Then you take out the person working the register. We’ll get his keys, take him with us, and take off.”

“Sure,” Duke said. He put the knife under his shirt.

A cowbell clanged when they entered. An old bald man behind the counter looked up. Erik had been correct in his prediction: there was only one customer, a ruddy looking blonde in cutoffs and an orange halter. She stood on skinny, knobbykneed legs before the rear reach in, furiously tapping a sandaled foot. “Jaysus Chrast, pops,” she complained in a bent twang. “Dollah ninty a half gallon? Whut kand of prass is that?”

“I don’t make the prices,” replied the old man, scowling.

Erik and Duke perused the magazine rack up front. “Baby Born with Elvis Tattoo,” boasted the Enquirer. “Careful of guns,” Erik whispered. “Lots of shopkeepers around here keep guns under the counter.”

“Ain’t afraid of no guns.” Duke was leering at the blonde.

Oh, no, Erik suddenly thought.

“Ah ain’t payin’ no dallah ninety fer a dag half gallon of milk.”

“Fine. Buy milk somewhere else.” The old man shrugged.

“Shee it!” The blonde opened the reach in and bent over.

“When the girl leaves,” Erik whispered, “we take down the old guy.”

But Duke was eyeing the blonde as she bent over. “Change of plans, partner,” he whispered back. “We’re taking the girl.”

Erik should’ve known something like this might happen. “Damn it, Duke,” he whispered more fiercely. “If we do that, the old guy’ll see! He’ll tell the cops what kind of car we took!”

“Shadap,” Duke replied. “We’re taking the girl.”

“No way, Duke! We agreed to do this my—”

“Shadap, I said.”

“This ain’t no library, fellas,” said the old man. “You all can buy one of those magazines or you can leave.”

Erik felt sick. The blonde was sputtering. “Dollah goddamn ninety, I say I cain’t bull leave it!”

“We don’t want no magazine, pops.” Duke lumbered up to the counter.

“Whatcha want, then?”

The blonde was coming down the aisle.

Aw, no no no no, was all Erik could think.

“Could use a pack of Kools, though,” Duke said, showing his grin.

No no no no no…

When the old man turned to get the cigarettes, Duke sank the knife into his lower back.

The old man screamed.

The blonde dropped her milk and screamed.

Erik shouted, “Goddamn it, Duke!”

“There, pops.” Duke chuckled. “How’s that?”

The blonde, still screaming, made for the back. Erik tackled her, but it was like wrestling with a greased snake.

Duke continued to chuckle, emptying the register. The old guy was flip flopping facedown on the floor. Dark blood pumped out of the hole just above his right kidney.

The blonde slapped, punched, and clawed for all she was worth. For a moment, she was on top of Erik, fury in her eyes, teeth snapping. Erik had to hold her back to keep her from biting his face.

“Damn if you weren’t right, fairy”’ Duke celebrated. “Looky!” Under the counter he found a big old Webley revolver. He held it up like a prize.

When Erik finally got the blonde up, she screamed and kicked him squarely between the legs. “Feisty little cooze, ain’t she?” Duke guffawed.

Erik went down.

Duke gestured. “Hey, darlin’. It ain’t polite to like leave without even sayin’ hello, now, is it?” The blonde was running for the door. Duke grinned behind the Webley’s sights and fired. The giant bullet struck the blonde in the left buttock, shattering her hip, and knocked her to the floor.

“Fuckin’ fairy.” Duke chuckled. “Ya let a woman kick your ass.”

The old guy was still churning in his own blood. “Looky there,” Duke observed. “Old fucker shat himself… Lights out, pops.” He fired a second shot into the old man’s head, which promptly exploded like a melon dropped from a great height. “I don’t think we have to worry about him tellin’ the cops nothin’ now, huh? You think so?”

Erik dragged himself up. “Fucking crazy psychopath!” he yelled, rasping. “We haven’t even been off the ward fifteen minutes and you’ve already killed three people!”

“It’s a kick, ain’t it?” Duke laughed back.

The blonde’s face ballooned red from pain and screaming. Her leg stuck out funny from her hip as she tried to drag herself out before a smear of blood.

Duke stuffed the money along with a box of shells into a plastic bag which read “Qwik Stop, the Happy Place to Shop.”

“Come on, fairy. Help me with the bimbo.”

The blonde blubbered, shivering, as they carried her out. The station wagon had keys in the ignition. Erik started it up while Duke pulled the blonde in the back.

“Glad this ain’t my car.” Duke chuckled. “This bimbo’s bleedin’ all over the place. Looks like she’s got some nice little titties, though.”

Erik spun wheels out of the lot. The girl shrieked steadily. “We can’t just let her die,” Erik yelled. “We’re gonna have to drop her off at a hospital or something.”

Duke’s grin flared in the rearview. “Oh, we’ll drop her off, all right. But not at no hospital. And not till I’m done.”

What have I let loose? Erik thought.

The girl screamed and screamed as Duke hauled off her shorts. He gave her leg a twist, snorting laughter, and she passed out. “Ain’t heard a woman scream like that in years. Makes my dog haaaaaaaaaard.” Erik could hear the shattered hip bones grinding. “Yes, sir, there’s some nice little titties,” Duke approved, and pulled the orange halter over her head. “Big cooze on her, though. Like you could drive a truck through it.”

Erik felt numb as he drove. This is all my fault, he thought. He should never have brought Duke with him. He should’ve found a way to get out himself.

“Hey, fairy, take a look. Show ya how a real man treats a woman.”

Duke’s mad, pumpkin grinning face descended. He gnawed, grunting, bit off a nipple, and spat it out the window.

Erik kept his eyes on the road. His heart was still racing. Duke had the knife and gun—Erik was helpless. All my fault, he thought over and over. He shivered when he heard Duke unbuckling his pants.

All my fault…

Duke raped the girl twice; after the second climax, she appeared dead. “You die on me already?” he asked, and stuck his knife right into her anus. She bucked and wailed. “Guess not!” Then he worked on her some more with the knife, for good measure, until she was dead.

“Later, baby,” Duke said when he was done. He popped open the back door. “Happy landings. And give Saint Pete a great big kiss from Duke.”

He shoved her out the door. The wind rushed. The naked body tumbled off the road into high grass.

Duke leaned forward, grinning. He put his arm around Erik. “You know somethin’, I ain’t had me this much fun since high school.”

Erik just drove.

Up ahead, the green road sign read “Lockwood 15 miles.”

—

Chapter 6

Ann fingered the plane tickets wistfully. “I want you to get those Delany ’rogs out tonight; give the assholes enough time to stew but not enough time to do the work, and also get the responses out to Winters’ document requests. Tonight.”

“Tonight?” asked the associate. He was young and lean, he had the hunger in his eyes. “That’ll be tough.”

“You’re the one who wanted to be a litigation lawyer. Get the stuff out tonight.”

The associate nodded, attempted a smile.

“I’ve looked through the documents you marked as privileged,” she went on, yet her fingers did not come away from the tickets. “I think we’re probably right, but I’m uneasy about those six internal memoranda on the maintenance procedures. If the bolts cracked while the plane was in flight, that’s fine. We’ve just got to make damn sure the bolts were maintained according to SOP. So we need to get with these guys and track down a solid basis on anything Jolly Roger might be preparing in anticipation of litigation.” Jolly Roger was what they called the opposition firm. They were well named. Ann’s firm was better named: the Snake Pit.

“Well,” replied the associate, “it wasn’t addressed to inside counsel, so we may be a little weak there.”

“I know, but these in house guys might’ve made a call to the addressees and asked for the junk on the memo. I’ll leave it to you and Karl to make the final decision.” God, I can’t wait to get out of here, she thought.

“Gotcha,” said the associate.

“And remember, when I come back we’ll only have a week to get the preliminary jury instructions out for the JAX Avionics trial. You’ll have to hump on that too.”

“Right,” said the associate.

“I’m out of here,” Ann said. “Good luck. I’ll leave my number with the paralegals in case you need me.”

“Okay, Ann. Hope you have a good time.” He paused, smiled. “You flying Air National?”

“Hell, no. The Atlantic Ocean’s a bit too cold for my tastes.” The associate laughed and left.

Ann felt strangely at ease with the idea of being away from the firm for a week. Usually, she couldn’t let go of things. Today, though, she couldn’t wait to. She was a partner now—the associates served her. Eventually, they’d have a nickname for her, something nasty like “She Devil” or “Ann of a Thousand Teeth.” Partners considered derogatory nicknames a secret compliment.

She turned off her office light and closed the door.

Suddenly, she shivered. It wasn’t cold. A squirrel just ran over your grave, her mother would tell her as a child.

What was it?

For a second, she felt as though she were leaving the firm for good.

«« — »»

Martin and Melanie were packing when she got home. Their excitement was clear—they were hustling about with big smiles on their faces, Melanie’s stereo pounding away.

This is going to be great, she thought, and shed her coat.

“I’m home,” she said. She held up the tickets.

“Hi, Mom!” Melanie greeted.

Martin came and kissed her. He looked longingly at the tickets. “This is going to be great,” he said.

“I was recently thinking along those same lines.”

“Everything tied up at work?”

“Yep. For the next nine days, I’m not a lawyer.”

“And I’m not a teacher.”

“And I’m not a student!” Melanie added.

For once, we get to be a family, Ann thought.

«« — »»

“The itinerary’s all planned,” she said at dinner. Martin had cooked one of his favorite culinary inventions, which he called “Poet’s Seafood and Pasta in a Bowl.” It was simple but quite good: pasta twists in olive oil, a little garlic, and powdered red pepper, heaped with steamed shrimp and cherrystone clams.

“When do we go to the Louvre?” Melanie asked, and speared a shrimp.

“Days two through four. It’s a big place, honey. It takes days to see it all.”

“We can have lunch in the café where Sartre met deBeauvoir. What an inspiration,” Martin said. “Maybe I should bring a typewriter.”

“Bring a pad and a pencil, Martin,” Ann suggested. “Sartre wrote No Exit with a pencil.”

“Good point.”

“Can we go to the Métal Urbain?” Melanie asked. “It’s a famous New Wave club in Pigalle. All the great bands play there.”

“Uh,” Ann faltered.

Martin gave her a look.

“Of course, honey.” Bring earplugs, she reminded herself. “And we’ll eat at Taillevent; it’s one of the best restaurants in the world—no offense to your cooking, dear.”

“None taken, so long as you pay,” he joked. But it was no joke. The last time she’d been to Taillevent, with a client from Dassault, the check for two had been about $700.

“We’ll also be going to the Orsay Museum of Modern Art, where they have all the expressionistic stuff, and the Centre Pompidou.”

“This is gonna be neat as shit!” Melanie exclaimed.

Martin laughed. “It’ll probably even be neater than that.”

But Ann felt disheartened. She’d seen all those places when they’d had Dassault as an auxiliary client, and she’d never really cared. Yet Melanie, her own daughter, longed to see these museums, and Ann had never even considered it.

She plucked her last clam out of the shell when the phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” Martin said.

“It’s probably that guy with the creepy voice,” Melanie ventured.

“No, let me get it,” Ann insisted. This was one thing she wanted to get to the bottom of.

“Hello?”

The line seemed to drift. She thought of wastelands. She heard a distant rushing like trucks on the freeway.

The ruined voice sounded wet, exerted. “Ann Slavik?”

“Who is this? Why have you been calling me?”

Martin got up.

“Listen,” the voice creaked. It stalled again, as if each word demanded a pointed effort. “Don’t come,” it said.

“What? Who is this!” Ann demanded.

“You don’t know me.”

“Who the hell is this!”

“Just…don’t come.”

“Give me that,” Martin said.

She held him off. “Don’t come where?” she asked of the caller.

The voice sounded shredded. “Take your daughter… Go far away.”

“If you don’t tell me who you are—”

The voice grated on, but Martin snatched the phone away. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Don’t call here anymore or I’ll have the phone traced. I’ll have the police on your sick ass, you hear me?”

Martin looked at the phone, mouth pursed. “He hung up,” he said.

“Who was it, Mom?” Melanie asked.

“No one, honey.”

“Some nut, that’s all,” Martin contributed. “What did he say?”

Don’t come, she thought. Take your daughter… Go far away.

What could he have meant?

What bothered her most, though, was what the voice had said as Martin had been taking the phone.

The moon, Ann. Do you remember? asked the abraded voice. Look at the moon tonight.

«« — »»

Down the hill, trucks roared past along Route 154.

Erik hung up the pay phone.

“You make your precious phone call?” Duke asked when he came back to the station wagon. He was eating Twinkies.

“Yeah,” Erik grated, and closed the door.

Duke grinned, showing cream between his teeth. “You busted out of a psych ward just for that, huh? Just to make a call?”

“Not quite.”

“Who was it?”

“The past,” he said.

Duke chuckled.

Erik drove the station wagon out of the truck stop. Duke had bagged over a hundred dollars at the Qwik Stop. Since then, they had purchased a Norelco electric razor, some food, some different clothes, and hair dye.

She’ll come, Erik thought.

He hoped a cryptic warning might work, but somehow, now he knew it wouldn’t. Providence, they’d called it.

“Where to now, fairy?”

“Duke, please don’t call me that.”

Duke slapped Erik’s back. “I’m just joshin’, man. We’re buddies, right?”

“Yeah. Buddies.”

“Where to, buddy?”

Home, he thought. She’s going to come, and she’s going to bring her daughter.

“We’ll find some out of the way motel for tonight. We gotta change how we look and get some rest.”

“What then?”

“Tomorrow we’ll go to Lockwood.”

Duke guffawed. “Sounds good to me, fa—I mean, buddy. I got nothin’ on my agender.” He crammed another Twinkie in his mouth.

Home, Erik thought. Providence.

He drove the car down the route. He did not look at the moon.

—

Chapter 7

That night, Martin made love to her. Lately, he hadn’t been, sensing her skewed moods. Tonight, though, it had been Ann’s advance. She’d felt her juices flowing all day; she was geared up for Paris—they all were—and Ann supposed that she wanted to see how this prospect of change would affect her responses. She hadn’t had a normal orgasm in two months. She thought sure that tonight, given her different feelings, she could…

But, of course, she didn’t.

She knew just minutes after they started. Martin was very vigorous in his passion; he wanted to do anything she liked, anything that made her feel good. When foreplay failed to moisten her, he went down on her, yet the harder she tried to get into it, the more remote she felt. After an hour they were engaged in positions they’d never attempted. Poor Martin, he was trying so hard, and so was she. But how can he know? she thought, turned upside down over the edge of the bed. Thank God for the dark. What would Martin think if he could see her face squeezed closed in anguish? It was like pushing a refrigerator up a steep incline, the effort she exerted to keep the images of the dream out of her mind’s eye.

His penis felt cold in her. She didn’t even feel like herself. It’s more like watching Martin fuck someone else, she thought, despairing. Each thrust into her flesh jerked the nightmare’s face closer. She was starting to get sore. She put on her act, which she’d gotten quite good at recently, and then it was over. He spent himself in her and collapsed.

Fear and guilt. But of what? Dr. Harold’s implications were hard to put into decipherable terms. Everything was a matrix of symbols. The symbols were sexual. Having real sex with Martin—the man she loved—reminded her of sex as it should be. The fear and guilt in her psyche prolapsed that reminder, filling her subconscious with ideas of sex as it shouldn’t be. She was afraid of the nightmare because the nightmare attracted her in some way, aroused her, and being aroused by an aberration caused a negative response. Hence, no orgasm under normal circumstances. Her consciousness battled with her subconsciousness. A vicious cycle.

She felt guilty about the dream because the dream came from her. The dream disgusted her, yet it also fulfilled her. More guilt, more fear. The dream was destroying them all.

Yes. Thank God it’s dark.

She pushed her face in the pillows to dry her tears.

Eventually, Martin fell asleep. His semen trickled in her; it felt cold. None of this is his fault, yet even he’s becoming a victim.

Does he know? she dared to ask herself. It was a question she’d kept buried. Did he know that she faked her orgasms? Martin was very perceptive, often uncannily so. How long could their relationship last like that?

Then another dread drifted up: Melanie. Do I really doubt that she’s a virgin? Dr. Harold seemed to think so. The dream was of Melanie’s birth, and it was sexual. What was her subconscious trying to suggest in that? Ann had always left sexual issues to the board of education, which only highlighted her failures as a mother. Mothers were supposed to talk about such things with their daughters, weren’t they? Ann’s mother hadn’t, though, and again Dr. Harold came to mind. You’re afraid of becoming your mother, he’d said. A few times Martin had talked to Melanie about sex, considering the AIDS crisis and the world’s growing list of STDs. But never Ann. Ann was always “working.” Ann was “too busy.” It was fear, she knew, fear of acknowledging something that she didn’t want to acknowledge. She absolutely could not imagine her daughter in a sexual situation. The image distressed her, and the punky looking leather and Goth button clad creeps Melanie hung around with amplified the image to one of utter terror. It all made her mind feel jammed. Too much to deal with, she thought, and whined. Just like Harold’s other inferences. Lesbianism. Religious voids. Did Dr. Harold really think she had lesbian tendencies because the nightmare involved women touching her?

God, she thought.

The bedroom’s darkness seemed particulate, grainy. It distilled her discomfort. Martin’s breathing sounded strangely loud, and her own heartbeat could’ve been someone kicking a wall. The room’s only light oozed similarly through the window, from the moon.

The moon, Ann, clicked the riven voice in her mind. Do you remember?

Remember what?

Look at the moon tonight.

Carefully, she got up. She walked naked to the blinds and peeked out. Boats rocked gently along endless docks. Moonlight rippled on the water. It seemed pink.