Shifters (33 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
He waited for a response but none came. Lucifer wasn’t much at conversation.
The hell-light, like encrimsoned scalloped scrolls, shined in the rhomboid of the window panes. A septagonal black onyx glittered in an ovate gold ring.
It was too funny…
Pyramidic dentiforms sparkled behind his eyes. His prismoid face smiled through a scarlet moline grin.
««—»»
Back to the trochoid present. Back to the plane of obcorated fodder. He gets up, strays to the fine corner cabinet on which sits a 240-year-old Vincennes vase containing a single long-stemmed rose.
He touches the rose with a fingertip. First it wilts, then dies. The water inside reverts to phlegm while the vase has reformed into a desiccated heart, the aortal opening of which now displays the dead rose. But even the rose changes, to a strand of pulsing nerves.
««—»»
Circles.
Squares.
Planes.
Triangles.
Geometry—the first wisdom of this plague called mankind. But the plague could revel in its filth—he didn’t care. He only cared about one thing.
And I’m going to get it.
It was time. His first hook had failed, hadn’t it? The seed of corruption had been spat back in his face. No matter. Even his guest had figured it out without ever really knowing it.
She was not of his world, not of his reality.
Only a figment of mind…
Or a figment of some
other
reality?
other
reality?
“It’s time to bring forth
my
reality,” Lethe muttered aloud.
my
reality,” Lethe muttered aloud.
(iv)
Hours passed in Locke’s engrossment. Many hours. The typewriter was his clock, its rapidly tapping keys the minute and the hour hands. Last thing he remembered was finishing the poem, the scattered wads of paper about the floor proof of his redrafting.
All of writing is rewriting,
Clark Ashton Smith had said. Or…was it Michener?
Clark Ashton Smith had said. Or…was it Michener?
Locke looked at the final draft:
THE ANGEL OF THE EGRESS
by Richard Locke.
Spun tousles
in spiriferous
red
for so long he’s felt
so dead
until now.
Flesh of midnight
sable blood
and the simple, subtle
kiss has pulled him back
from the abyss.
What more truth
can his muse prehend?
Every beginning
begins at an end.
So here am I
emboldened to enter.
Good or bad, that was it, that was his muse. His mind felt spent yet vibrant. This would be the first poem in the book. The angel, the dream woman, was of course a symbol, and now Locke was beginning to understand what it was. She was the final intercession of the catastrophe that was the last several months of his life, and the epiphany of things to come. Fine. That’s what he’d needed to put into words, however few.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
The series of loud knocks pounded on the door; Locke nearly shrieked at the start. But only then, at this shattering of his concentration, did he nearly shriek again when he looked around.
He wasn’t in the same room. It…well, it looked like the same cottage but…
A dead room in the dead of night, laved in twilight. Just a bare mattress, bare walls streaked by dust and discolor. Bare wood floors. Behind him, where a headboard might be, a small window framed the moon.
I’m either insane or I’m asleep,
he thought. This was the same room from last night’s dream. Barren, dilapidated, unentered for so long, dust lay an inch deep on the termite ridden floor. Then a glance out the window showed him, yes, the moon, but ringed by scarlet light like luminous blood…
he thought. This was the same room from last night’s dream. Barren, dilapidated, unentered for so long, dust lay an inch deep on the termite ridden floor. Then a glance out the window showed him, yes, the moon, but ringed by scarlet light like luminous blood…
This is…not too good.
BAM! BAM! BAM BAM!.
Don’t answer it.
He looked down at the antique typewriter; it shined in mint-condition when he’d first removed its cover, but now it stood as a spindly contraption formed of rust. Blood dripped off the rotten platen, the cotton ribbon blood-soaked. Beside the ruined machine lay an equally rusted Smith & Wesson .38 ACP semi-automatic pistol, with fingerprints further rusted into its grip, and beside that a spent cartridge, its brass finish long turned black.
He looked down at the antique typewriter; it shined in mint-condition when he’d first removed its cover, but now it stood as a spindly contraption formed of rust. Blood dripped off the rotten platen, the cotton ribbon blood-soaked. Beside the ruined machine lay an equally rusted Smith & Wesson .38 ACP semi-automatic pistol, with fingerprints further rusted into its grip, and beside that a spent cartridge, its brass finish long turned black.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
The room—the entire cottage was changing; it was aging as he watched, and worse, corroding, becoming fouled. A noxious odor rose, and Locke began to gag as if in a tear-gas chamber.
Just a dream, just another dream,
he tried to convince himself.
And I’m not—
Just a dream, just another dream,
he tried to convince himself.
And I’m not—
BAM! BAM! BAM!
—going to answer the door!
With
his
dreams of late? A garbage dump of hallucinatory, alcoholic detritus? But in a second the stench rose to choke him, like a corpse-pit in high sun. Locke couldn’t make it; he jumped up, ran for the door and swung it open—
his
dreams of late? A garbage dump of hallucinatory, alcoholic detritus? But in a second the stench rose to choke him, like a corpse-pit in high sun. Locke couldn’t make it; he jumped up, ran for the door and swung it open—
No one stood on the other side of the door, which was fine with Locke.
No
one.
But—
one.
But—
He stumbled out in nauseous shock.
The cottage had changed, yes, and so had the back yard. Once a sweetly-scented and opened-air cloister full of flowers and autumn-turning greenery—now it was a miasma. Ruins of spoiled weeds poked above a top of viscid, ill-colored fog. The perimeter fence seemed to be rotting in places, its bricks and mortar decomposed so to sag in place. Viscous fluids glimmered amongst the bricks, and amongst that, tiny insectoid larvae seemed to twitch. The air felt hot as a sauna, not like late autumn in Seattle but mid-August in Vietnam. Locke could scarcely breathe; when he did though, no air seemed to fill his lungs, just moist, stinking heat. Locke imagined the air of Dachau or Andersonville, or the fields of Verdun full of more than a million dead.
He staggered and gagged, then staggered further without conscious notion of direction. The foot-deep ground fog glowed dully, a milky broth. Things—Locke didn’t know what, just…
things
—seemed to stare at him an inch beneath the pallid surface. Severed heads? Sloughed faces? And with each blind step, he heard as well as felt a crisp, spindly
crunching
as though he were stepping on racks of rib bones or small animal carcasses. Locke tromped out of the morass, and when he caught what little breath he could, he found himself teetering beneath the front enclosure of the third cottage. Gasping from the death-stench, he crashed open the front door—
things
—seemed to stare at him an inch beneath the pallid surface. Severed heads? Sloughed faces? And with each blind step, he heard as well as felt a crisp, spindly
crunching
as though he were stepping on racks of rib bones or small animal carcasses. Locke tromped out of the morass, and when he caught what little breath he could, he found himself teetering beneath the front enclosure of the third cottage. Gasping from the death-stench, he crashed open the front door—
Little relief as he stood in the middle of the room. What he breathed was not air; it was loathsomeness, it was death distilled down to its thickest constituent. Locke tripped over his own feet in these noxious fumes, thumped against a bare-wood wall stained brown with old blood. His eyes fell on sights in flashlike increments: a long sewing needle stained brown, multitudinous crusts of discharged semen, great washes of urine cooked brown by the heat, and larger, plume-like shapes of red, finely flecked vomit.
Aghast, he stepped back out on the porch as the horrific garden shuddered before him.
Everything’s changing. It’s prolapsing.
Even the rear face of the mansion seemed to rot before his eyes, a house of dead, termite-ridden wood somehow turning mucoid. The high gunslit windows looked filmed in blood.
Even the rear face of the mansion seemed to rot before his eyes, a house of dead, termite-ridden wood somehow turning mucoid. The high gunslit windows looked filmed in blood.
Then he heard a scream.
To his right… The second cottage, where the painter was staying. He tramped over through the sickly mist, more things crunching beneath his steps. Again, he played the voyeur, peeking into a window…
He looked in at a vision of hell that might’ve appalled Bosch…
Martin the mohawked painter stood intently, wearing only a pair of blue jockey shorts and a black T-shirt that read WHITE TRASH COMPACTOR, DEBUT CD BY YOUR KID’S ON FIRE. He was running a pizza-cutter briskly up and down the back of his red-headed “assistant” who hung stark naked from lashed wrists propped over a ceiling hook. “Not too much, just enough,” Martin remarked. He stepped back to review his deed. The hanging redhead’s body shuddered like electrocution; she was still very much alive, and a bit more than the “trashy looking chick” Locke had first dismissed her as. Clot-like masses of intravenous needlemarks crusted the insides of her elbows. Stretched out like that she seemed little more than a skeleton covered by white, bruised skin, gut-sucked, slat-ribbed. Her emaciation shone as plain as her profession: a street prostitute.
Martin’s profession, however, was more enigmatic.
A few more peppy strokes of the pizza-cutter right over the knobs of the spine (each stroke brought a shrill scream, like bad brakes), and then Martin looked to his left. “Think that sparked her up, Darlie?”
The blonde—Darlie—lolled on a couch, naked, a foot tapping as if desperate for something. She looked malnourished as the redhead, a death-camp whore with breasts reduced to tiny nippled flaps. Hollow eyes gave a dull glint behind strings of dirty, dishwater-blonde hair.
“Do the front now,” she said. “That’ll really get her screaming. Do her like you did that one-eyed bitch we picked up on Pacific Ave. last week.”
Martin poised, touching his chin, as he considered the recommendation. Then he pulled off the T-shirt. One side facing the window now, Locke could see the tapestry of tattoos on the torturer’s chest—Munch-like suggestions of thin, screaming faces, not particularly original—not to mention nipples and navel aglitter with multiple chrome piercings. The rack-thin redhead heaved tiny gusts of breath in the pause, then Martin swirled her around to face him.
“Hmmm. Maybe,” he said.
Her face looked like a bleached skull behind the drooping strands of russet, and her voice crackled like husks of dried leaves. “Please, Marty, no more. You said you’d use Darlie this time. All she ever does is hold out on you—”
“Fuck you!” the blonde spat. “Marty, she’s a lyin’ little trick-kid! I ain’t never held out on you! That dirty fuck-bucket’ll do anything to save her skinny ass!”
More dried leaves crunching. “Please, Marty—”
“Come on, Marty, shiv the bitch up! Her cunt’s so fulla herp, she ain’t no good for the street no more anyway, and her asshole’s so big she shits herself!”
Locke remained staring through the window, his eyes frozen open, his muscles besieged by a spectral paresis. He did not want to witness this, yet he had no choice. He couldn’t move his face away, he couldn’t turn his head, he couldn’t even flinch—it felt as though his entire body had been set into a block of hardened concrete with only a hole for his face to peer through. Helpless, his sight remained plastered. The redhead appeared almost breastless, just large irregular nipples that looked chewed. Scars of past cigarette burns blotched her chest, and so devoid of body fat she was that her navel stuck out like the tip of a toe. More burns and track-marks smirched the bony pelvis and inner thighs. Dots of scabs adorned a badly shaved pubis beneath which her vaginal folds puffed out, the furrow filled with clusters of active herpes.
Martin took an appraising step back. “Hmmm,” he repeated. “Maybe? No?” A pause of artistic decision. Then: “Yes!”
Darlie squealed in delight, while the redhead merely oozed a gut-deep groan. Martin set down the pizza-cutter to replace it with a simple plastic disposable razor, then began to scrape it over the knub-like navel—
scritch scritch scritch
Each scrape brought a bizarre smothered cough from the recipient’s throat and a reflexive body-long jerk.
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