Everybody Scream! (22 page)

“These little fishes are looking at
all
the guys, man…just like we look at all of them.”

Fen’s grin turned upside-down as he faced his friend again. “You’re just jealous because they know better than to look at a goober like you.”

“Jealous of what? The blonde is a lot nicer.”

“Good. One for me and one for you. We’ll lose the little one.”

“Or share her,” Wes grinned. He pushed a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth in preparation. “What about you-know-who?”

Fen glanced at the van and camper which, with the projecting tent-like canopy, formed a sort of camp. Some
Dozers
, some lawn chairs. No sign of LaKarnafeaux (described to them by Moband as looking like a fat, aging bikie), and lights were on in the camper. Only two men sat out to tend to business; one in a top hat and fringed vest and the other balding and small, in a flowered shirt, who was eyeing Fen and Wes suspiciously as if he thought they might steal something.

“I don’t know,” Fen murmured, lowering his head and pretending to study eye pins. “We may not be able to get to the fat man himself. Maybe we’ll take down one of his boys, but they have to have enough vortex on them to make it worthy. What we really need to do is get inside the van.”

They had seen two boys buy some weed right out in the open of the camp, but hadn’t witnessed a vortex transaction. Was it customary to be invited inside the camper or, more likely, the van? The purpose of this reconnaissance mission had been to find out. One good thing was that they hadn’t seen any of the enemy Martians stalking about, sticking close to vortex as they usually did, the way hyenas would circle a dying antelope.

“You make me laugh, spitter,” Wes chuckled huskily. “You tell me (imitating Fen’s stern manner), ‘No girls, no games, no fooling around’–and now you smell red bush and you forget everything.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything, no-brain. Come on, before we lose them.” Fen nudged past him.

“That blonde is cute,” Wes reiterated.

Fen worked his way closer to the three girls, pretending to examine a rack of t-shirts. At an explosion of giggling he glanced over. Tiny Cookie was lost in a huge, clear rubbery jacket. Fen and Fawn met each other’s gaze. Fawn looked sharply away, then back. “Hi,” Fen said.

“Hello.”

“Oh God,” Cookie muttered, spinning away.

“You better help your friend find a jacket that fits.”

“I know,” Fawn smiled, a little flushed.

“Ladies,” Wes nodded, stepping up, chewing. Cookie giggled into her hand.

“Hello,” Fawn said, and Heather in echo.

“Having trouble deciding?” Fen nodded at the rack.

“Oh, I can’t afford one–my mother wouldn’t give me the money.”

“Try some on and I’ll tell you what I think. Never mind whether you can afford it for a few minutes.” Fen and Wes came around from behind the t-shirt rack. “Go ahead, play model. You look like one, anyway.”

“Thanks.” Fawn’s face filled with blood; she hid her compressed smile under her nose as she lowered her head and inserted her arms in the sleeves of another white leather jacket. Her feathered red hair hung and swayed. Fen drank her in. The carnival lights played on her milky skin like the iridescent colors in an opal.

“Fawn and Heather are in a modeling class in school,” said Cookie.

“I believe it,” said Fen.

“Me too,” said Wes, though only encompassing Heather in his broad, apple-cheeked chewing grin.

“That’s a nice jacket you’ve got on,” Fawn managed, looking up.

“Thanks.”

“Were you in the army?”

“Yeah,” exaggerated Fen slightly. A military vocational school. But they’d taught him how to shoot, stab, blow things up–right?

“How about you?” Heather asked Wes blandly.

“Nope,” said Wes, spitting out a blob of black saliva. “I’m my own army.” Heather smiled, started to knead like dough under Wes’s faithful charm.

“You look great,” Fen said, taking a step back to eye Fawn from foot to head. She wore an oversized blue t-shirt, black sweat pants as tight as leotards on her long slim legs (but with no rear flap), and Heather was holding her faded denim jacket with its assortment of pins, brooches and buttons.

“Thanks.”

“But then you’d look great in any of them.” He wished he could spare the money to buy her one.
That
would be a slick move. Maybe it would be worth it, but he’d have to wait a little longer and see. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Fawn.”

“Wow–Fawn. What’s that, like a baby horse?”

“No, that’s a foal. I have a friend named Foal. Fawn is a baby deer.”

“That’s pretty. Really. I’m Fen.” He held out his hand.

Blushing again, eyes averted, smile still trying to hide, Fawn extended her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Hey,” Wes said, “why don’t we all go somewhere and get something to eat? Our treat–right, Fen?”

“Certainly.”

“Me too?” Cookie raised her eyebrows, pouting.

“Certainly.”

Heather looked to Fawn and shrugged. Fawn fought a smirk, turned back to Fen and said, “Alright.” She peeled off the white leather jacket and slipped back into her denim one.

“Hold on a minute. Stay here.” Fen returned to the cabinet where he and Wes had been browsing before. Fen called to the top-hatted man to assist him. Mortimer Ficklebottom pushed himself out of his chair with a lazy groan.

A moment later Fen returned, and handed Fawn a little paper bag. “For you to add to your collection, there.” He pointed to her chest.

“Oh–thanks.” Fawn dug into the bag. Cookie giggled. Fen felt his face flush hot. It was the red-irised eye pin which had also caught Wes’s fancy. “Oooh,” said Fawn, also red-faced again. “Thanks, it’s beautiful!” Her pleasure was genuine; her delicate narrow eyes sparkled. She was beautiful.

“Can I pin it on for you? A medal of honor.”

“For what?” She passed it back to him.

“For being so gorgeous. Where do you want it?”

Fawn whipped her head into profile, gazed up at the darkening sky. “I can’t
believe
this!”

“Believe what?” Fen grinned.

“Pin it where you want,” she said, hooking Heather’s arm.

Fen stepped to her, positioned the scarab-like piece of jewelry at a bare spot close to Fawn’s collar, just above her left breast. “Will the heart area do?” he smiled.

Fawn made a high squeaky sound and buried her face in Heather’s neck, stomped her foot. Heather grimaced and shoved her away.

“What’s wrong?” Fen smiled more broadly, eating it up.

“Nothing,” Fawn said, and bit her lower lip. “Go ahead.”

Fen pinned the strange red eye to Fawn’s jacket. He appraised her. “Perfect. What do you think?”

“Thank you–I love it!”

“My pleasure. Are we all set to go?”

Affirmatives. They moved on. The balding man with the flowered shirt in the lawn chair watched after them, frowning, not sipping his mead.

Mortimer noticed this. “What’s wrong?” he asked Sneezy Tightrope.

Holographic nudes hung on the walls of the van, a large vidscreen played a chip featuring nothing but blue waves on the white sand of a private beach in Diamondcrest, over and over, the same waves and same swooping birds repeated every hour if you could catch the pattern. The smell of seaweed had insinuated itself into the very substance of the van’s interior like grains of sand into its cracks, corners and pores. Eddy Walpole came to sit on a fur-covered fold-out sleeper sofa beside Hector Tomas.

“Sorry, man, I just called our contact and his hand phone’s turned off. He was supposed to be here with your package hours ago.”

Hector blinked at his host numbly for a moment. “You have no idea where he is now or another way to reach him?”

“Well, I can try a few places. I’m sure he’s still coming, he’s a reliable source. He’s probably on his way now, is what it is, most likely. Probably just forgot to put his phone on, or bumped it, you know. Why not go grab a burger and come back in an hour or two?”

Hector’s hands were knotted on his thighs. The jolt of his last anti-sleep pills, without the calming sedatives to balance them out, crackled through his veins like blood turned to electricity. Corpuscles raced on laser beam tracks, screeching around corners, ricocheting off walls. Colliding in explosions of flame, everywhere throughout him, vehicles piling up…

“I suppose I’ll have to,” Hector breathed, slowly rising.

Eddy rose too. “Again, sorry. Normally our man is pretty punctual. I know this isn’t professional. We’ll throw in a bag of weed for ya, how about that?” Smile.

Hector had never tried that in lieu of sedatives. “Whatever. Thank you. I’ll come back later, then.”

“Good.” Eddy clapped him on the back on the way out.

Outside, Eddy watched the tall man walk away with stiff movements, for a moment disoriented before choosing a direction, buffeted in that second by waves of people like a buoy. “What a burn-out,” Eddy smirked to Mort.

“We have a problem,” said Mortimer Ficklebottom.

The mall building looked like a hangar: a windowless collapsible building, long and high-ceilinged, although there had been no upper story assembled as there had been for the crafts show structure. The lighted interior drew a somnambulistic Hector inside. A bustling interior, crowded with people but more so with color, with items, with many tiny individual
things
all seeming to scream out for his attention simultaneously. A clamoring pawing at his senses, a cacophony of merchandise.

He made the mistake of paging through an encyclopedia on a counter, and subsequently listened for fifteen minutes as a pleasant but driven ex-teacher described the various sets of encyclopedias she was selling. Hector agreed that they were very impressive, and also that it was important children should have a set in the home and be encouraged to read…but finally managed to get in that he was divorced and had no children. Regrettably, he didn’t add. He loved children. Their innocent enthusiasm was the very stuff of life. But their innocent enthusiasm depressed him. Better it was that he had no children to ache over. He extricated himself at last, eager to return to his spectral anonymity.

Fifteen minutes earlier Noelle Buda had fallen into the same trap, but younger and more energized, climbed to freedom more quickly. The woman let Noelle out of her grip reluctantly. She was zealously committed, as if she alone could save the neglectful masses from their illiteracy. Noelle had moved to a table that displayed cheap jewelry, a mixed and staring audience of eye pins.

She had played a few games half-heartedly, won a poster of the group Flemm which she had left on a table under a food pavilion for some younger girl to find. Riding rides alone had no appeal for her–especially since this carnival employed the practice of incorporating into some rides the dead bodies not claimed by the town morgue after the official waiting period. Two rows of actual human and humanoid skulls, six to either side on poles, flanked the path which led to the Vomit Comet. Purple lights glowed in their sockets now that it was dark. For most this added to the excitement of anticipation. It had no such attraction for Noelle.