Everybody Scream! (33 page)

There was a boy of seventeen lounging in one of the lawn chairs. He told Hector with a smirk, “Sorry, dad, we’re not doing business tonight.” The boy must have been related to that man he’d dealt with before, Hector thought, taking in that familiar smirk, though Cod wasn’t related to Eddy Walpole. “You can buy a
Dozer
t-shirt, though.”

“I’m expected. My package wasn’t ready an hour ago. I was told to come back.”

“Oh?” The boy looked amused, as if by a disheveled drunk.

“Yes. Now do you think you might go inside and tell him I’m here?”

“Well, I guess I can do that.” The boy got up. He moved to three teenage boys and a girl nearby who were standing drinking beer. They all five looked at Hector. The girl, in a black
Dozer
t-shirt meant for a child and bikini panties, very pretty and with a lovely body, smirked. Apparently the boy had asked these others to keep an eye on him. Cod disappeared into the van.

A bit uncomfortable under the gaze and soft chuckles of the drinking teens, Hector turned his back to glance into the flows of people. A dwarf black man waddled by, his head twice the size of Hector’s as if that was where his missing height had hidden. A tall and spindly alien couple in sparkling gold robes glided along, their skin as white and glossy smooth as porcelain, their heads only as large as Hector’s fist, their black hair braided into one thick connecting bridge to signify their marriage. A pack of Hispanic boys came sauntering along from the other direction. They wore white leather jackets, and in a few moments Hector saw that the words
Hispanic Panic
were emblazoned on the backs, no doubt their gang name. From their collars down their chests hung girls’ panties like a tie or bib, probably belonging to their girlfriends or a trophy from a gang rape–a new fashion style for rough teenage Hispanic gangs. The girls with them were aged between eleven and fourteen, Hector judged, and were all dyed-blonde Anglo types but for one Hispanic girl. The boys and girls alike were loud and boisterous, with proud intimidating lawlessness screaming from them.

Hector wasn’t surprised when they blocked the path of the tall linked couple. It was natural; he had anticipated it perhaps before the gang did. Hector’s heart pounded for the couple as they tried to move around the boys, who fanned out to block them. One boy of about nineteen, probably the leader, flashed open a switchblade. Of course–how could they resist that silly, stupid braid? Some of the boys closed around behind the frightened, passive couple. God forbid they should have to flee connected like that. The boy brandished his knife in the air, grinning his huge white grin. The others laughed, taunted the couple, began snatching at their matching purses. No one passing by stopped to help.

The blade hovered high in the air, as if in some ritual the boy, an evil priest, would unmarry these two–as if he were waiting for his dark god to bless the knife before he struck. Hector faintly acknowledged an approach behind him, and Cod’s voice. “Alright, dad, you’re clear to go in.” But Hector walked away from the voice.

“Hey,” Hector said as he drew his gun from inside his black plastic Theta researcher jacket, that nice government agent’s sidearm with no recoil and no sound and plasma bullets that could dissolve you without a trace in less than a minute. “Hey,” he said again, and now took a two-handed firing stance despite the lack of recoil–to keep his hand from shaking.

“Whoa,” said Cod, backing up. Fast.

One of the boys looked over, cried out sharply. The others looked. One jerked his hand toward his underarm.

“
Don’t!
” Hector boomed, more out of fear than anger, training the gun on this boy. The kid raised his hands above his head. “I’m a forcer,” Hector said. “Leave those two alone or I’ll have you taken in.”

“Hey, Officer Bato, ease up,” the leader laughed, clicking his knife shut and slowly pocketing it. No sudden moves. “We’re just playing, you know?”

“I’m not playing. Move along.”

“Oooh,” mocked one of the fluffy blonde pre-teen girls.

“Stop drinking so much coffee, huh?” laughed the leader. He said something to the others in Spanish, which Hector wasn’t really fluent in despite his heritage. They began to move along, but nice and slow and unhurried. One still purposely bumped against the giant couple as he passed.

“I see any more trouble with you and you’ve had it, amigos,” Tomas said after them, straightening up, lowering his pistol. He did feel like he’d drank too much coffee. Several too many gallons.

“Oooh,” said that girl over her shoulder again.

The married couple stood staring down at Hector. Without eyes or even mobile features, he could still read their gratitude. They both nodded their linked heads, then resumed their gliding away. Stuffing his handgun away, Hector let out the air that had ballooned his heart and turned to see Eddy Walpole standing there regarding him alongside Cod. Hector moved to them.

“Hello again–officer,” Eddy greeted him gravely. No smirk.

The horrible realization came over Hector, and his heart ballooned again. Fate was the clown at tonight’s carnival. Giggling, prancing, spraying water from a lapel flower into people’s faces. “I’m not really a forcer,” Hector said hollowly, as if he himself didn’t believe his own words. “I just said that to scare those boys off.”

“And why would you want to do that–unless you were a forcer?”

“I was concerned for that alien couple.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have anything to discuss with you tonight.” Eddy began to turn. Hector saw his own hand shoot out and he caught the man’s arm.

“Wait...please...I’ll pay you double.”

“You must think I’m pretty brainless, huh?”

“I’m not a forcer...I’ll show you my I.D....I used to be a Theta researcher, that’s all…”

“Your credentials don’t mean anything to me, sir.” He set us up, thought Eddy Walpole. He’s in this with Kahn. If only Sneezy was here right now.

“Look in my eyes.”

“Hypnotism won’t work, sir.”

“I need your drugs, can’t you see that? You know what it looks like.” Hector took a step closer, still holding Eddy’s elbow. “Look at my eyes.”

Eddy did look. And then he slowly nodded. The knot loosened in Hector’s belly. “Alright,” Walpole said softly. “Come inside. But leave your gun with the kid.”

“Of course.”

Hector half expected the invitation to become a trap, felt defenseless without his gun, but Walpole produced the drugs…even the promised bonus of seaweed for the inconvenience of waiting. Hector thanked him sincerely. Smirking inside, Walpole thought, how could I have doubted him? “You’re a lucky man. We’re shutting down our business for now. You’re our last customer.”

“I appreciate it.” Hector slipped the six pill dispensers into various pockets outside and inside his jacket. “Thank you.”

Eddy smiled, clapped him on the back, showed him to the van’s door. Hector glanced over his shoulder at a bearded fat man who hadn’t said anything. This man smiled at him pleasantly, peering over the top of granny glasses low on his nose. Beside the fat man throughout had sat a boy of eleven or twelve in a camouflage uniform and cap, his hair a crew cut stubble beneath, his eyes on Hector like blade points. Hector didn’t know much about the Martians other than that they exiled their members when they reached thirteen, and had a code of honor that restricted them from shooting a man who wasn’t armed with a gun–though Hector suspected this law had more to do with impressing themselves than anything else, considering their reputation for being one of the most violent and ruthless of Punktown’s newest, or even established, gangs. He seemed to remember reading something about a drug they all took to stay pumped up. Vortex…purple vortex. That was it.

The door slid shut behind him. Mission accomplished. He felt as he had when returning from some of his trips crossing over. Relieved, and shaken. He had to find a place now to roll his weed in the papers they’d given him, smoke it and calm down. Well...maybe it was better to just sit down finally and have a few beers.

He was so relieved that it made him happy and ashamed of himself at the same time.

Hector hadn’t gone too far before he saw the Bedbug.

It was moving along in the crowd, weaving purposefully but not rudely through the generally taller beings. Black, bipedal, beetle-like. Two of its six, pincer-tipped tendril arms–the lower two–had been removed and replaced with mechanical arms with four fingers and opposable thumbs, an artificial adaptation to a humanoid-oriented world. It wore no clothing or jewelry, but slung on a kind of neck strap was a small black device of some sort. A camera? A translator, maybe. Or a weapon.

Hector sort of began to drift along after it, eyes fixed on it.

They lived in another dimension, passed in and out of dimensions in their strange vehicles called trans, locomotive-like things that before disappearing traced intricate patterns on odd beds of tracks, hence the appellation Bedbugs–a derogatory nickname to indicate the negative feelings many had for the race, best called a prejudice. But why this abhorrence, when there were stranger, uglier races? That another of Punktown’s most feared street gangs was a gang of Bedbugs was not a sufficient answer. Maybe it was a feeling people couldn’t put a finger on.

Where was this one headed? To buy some candyfloss? To toss some darts at balloons? To climb aboard some madly circling ride that reminded it of a tran? Hector was thankful that the being was so intent on its destination that it didn’t swivel its tiny head around to see him sort of following it.

A man held his nose after it had passed. Hector felt, if not sorry, at least sympathetic toward the loathed beings. But stronger was the horror, the terror, that made him want to both follow it to its destination, and get as far away from it as possible.

He almost lost sight of it, but it reappeared far ahead and he quickened. Then it turned into an alley between trailers and was gone. Hector began to press forward insistently through the flocks. He reached the alley, moved through it to its mouth, and halted there. Not far ahead, the insectoid had obviously reached its destination.

It was a great spider-like leg growing out of the empty air. A lighted sign explained the attraction as best it could but was too far for Hector to clearly read. Something about an extra-dimensional being reaching into this plane of existence, like a swimmer testing the water temperature with his toes. Something about two hundred and forty-three legs identical to this one having appeared out of the sky over a bank in town. Yes, yes, he remembered the story. Remembered that dribbling liquid fell from the sky near those legs for four months and had to be caught in a disintegration unit to prevent those who used the bank’s heliport from requiring umbrellas.

There was a dribble from the air here, too, he could see. It puddled a little but seemed to be mostly absorbed by the dirt.

The Bedbug swivelled its head and Hector drew back sharply, but it didn’t swivel far enough behind to see him. He relaxed. Now in its feeler-arms it raised and pointed that device hanging from its neck. It did seem like it was taking pictures with a camera–though a complex-looking one. No one passing took but a casual notice. But Hector stared raptly. His horror, undiminished, and curiosity were one and the same.

No lights blinked on the black device, there was no flash or sound from it. There was, though, a thin bluish smoke as from a cigarette which came twisting out of a grille in the side of it.

Hector remembered reading how the odd mechanical temple built illegally in a cave on The Head by a small group of Bedbugs had produced bluish smoke from various openings and grilles. Someone sucked ice water up the straw of Hector’s spine.

Most people, even scientists, had no real idea why the Bedbugs should be so disdained. But then most people, even scientists who had dissected a few Bedbugs, had no idea how, or if, or
what
they ate to survive.

Hector knew. He had been told about it, and once toward the end of his career had even seen it. No, not here. Not in this dimension.

It had been in that place he had crossed over into, where the “trace-energies” of human beings such as himself were in constant woe, ranging from brooding melancholy to all-out hysterical anguish. The
screaming
…thousands, all in a wretched harmony, a unity of fear. They had begged him to take them away, would have clawed him to pieces in their desperation had they had physical limbs.

“They
feed
on us!” they told him, over and over. “Stop them! Save us! They bring us here…the Gatherers...”

Maybe his associates had learned since his dismissal where the Bedbugs had collected all these tormented souls from, to be kept penned shoulder-to-nonmaterial-shoulder in this place until
needed
, but Hector didn’t know. He ached to know and to never know.

The government was currently insistent on keeping these findings a secret. Debates were underway. Did they have a right or obligation to protect these souls, trace-energies, reincarnations or whatever they chose to call the tormented beings? They didn’t have legal jurisdiction over the world where these entities were penned and harvested. In fact, they were trespassers there, since the Bedbugs had actually artificially opened or created this great space to store their rations in.