Skullcrack City (16 page)

CP: No. No. You have to stop.

P: I should be dead. I can’t be loved. There’s no hope. We’re all dead already. I’ll make it stop.

CP: Shit. You’re not listening. Slow it down. Breathe. You’re on loop. Put the shotgun down. If you do this, you’ll prove every bad thing you’ve ever thought about yourself.

P: Please. Let me die.

CP: No.

P: Why go on?

It was a loop, a sickening circuit, the taste of shotgun oil and salty crocodile tears, the human mind as a trap, cruel in its self-sustaining tyranny.

The circle was finally severed, after hours spent inside that place, by a small sound.

Someone was crying outside my door. It was soft but certain, muffled by hands or the crook of an arm. Somehow, from the reservation and control in the sound, I knew it was Dara.

I placed the shotgun on the floor and crossed the room. I reached the door and put my ear to it. She stopped crying for a moment. She said, “I can’t keep going like this.”

It sounded like the truth.

She kept crying there, in the chair outside my room, and then I opened the door and walked out and crouched in front of her.

She said it again. “I’m sorry. I can’t keep living like this.”

I put my hand on her knee, looked her in the eye, and said, “Me either.”

Whatever dream we’d sold ourselves in that moment, wishing for each other’s suffering to finally cease, we still had to see Ms. A.

We walked down a long concrete hall, a corridor of low light and echoing feet. My surgical scrubs made papery brushing sounds with each step. The coolness of the air and prominent venting told me we were probably underground. We passed what felt like thirty doors, some of them dead-bolted from the exterior. There was a steel door near the end, no window, no slots, an arcane symbol in white paint on the surface. A strong, low voice came from inside, its timbre a brew of anger and batshit confidence.

“They’re coming! Sooner than you think, pallies! Sooner than you think!”

Dara shook her head and rolled her eyes. She slapped her palm against the door twice and yelled back, “Shut the fuck up, Clarence.” She turned to me. “Supposedly he’s been saying that since 1918. You have to give him points for persistence.”

“But how…”

“Don’t ask. Half these doors behind you, you’d have some question like that. We used to have more of these guys in containment, but they executed a lot of their own in the Brubaker raid.”

“Wait…Brubaker? That was that tenement fire about five years ago, right? I thought that was gang retaliation.”

“It was, kind of. Just not involving the gangs that were in the news. And it was more extermination than retaliation. We’ve barely recovered since. Ms. A. was ahead of it though—she already had this place locked down. Only a few of us knew this existed and we started the transport one night before they hit Brubaker. Fucking Matthew…”

“Somebody sold you guys out?”

“Which time? I mean, look at this place. We live like this. Always afraid. Always on the move. Life with the Vakhtang starts to look a lot prettier after a while. The control, the money, the longevity, that illusion of power. They’ve got it good so long as you don’t consider the trade-off.”

Please. No
.

“But how do they not understand what they’re feeding into? Or where they’re headed?”

“You worked for the bank, right? You must understand the immense power of self-serving delusion.”

I much preferred this new round of Point/Counterpoint. The playful lilt in her voice was far more charming than the dull weight of the shotgun.

I don’t know what we thought Ms. A. was going to tell us. Part of me hoped that she’d take one look at Dara, give us some kind of blessing, and send us on our way.
Sure, listen, kids—I get it. This is a grind. Life is short and the weight of what I’m asking you to do and to know is too much to bear. You’ve fought long and hard enough. So head out that door and lay low and try to find some way back to blissful ignorance for your remaining years.

At the end of another long corridor we reached Ms. A.’s command center, which turned out to be a La-Z-Boy recliner, abutted by a small end table holding a lamp, a remote control, and much to my relief, Deckard in his travel case. A massive flat screen TV hung from the concrete wall. A screensaver of slowly drifting clouds served faux-window duty.

Already disappointed by the lack of candles, occult books, and cauldrons, I was doubly let down when Ms. A. rose from her chair and revealed herself. Two sleepy hazel eyes behind wireframe rims, bright white teeth, gray and blonde hair in a bob cut. Light blue sweater. Khaki capris. Flip-flops. A total absence of bushy hair, shrunken heads, snakes, crystal jewelry, or sassy talking animal sidekicks. She reminded me of a demure bank teller, the kind who quietly took their breaks with a crossword puzzle and had husbands named Vern and got really excited about baking for company picnics. Totally not mystical, which was weird because earlier I think she might have spoken to me telepathically or through her hand or…something. She had been so close in that room, and I realized I hadn’t felt her breath.

She approached me, arms out. “Mr. Doyle! I wasn’t sure you’d be joining us.”

I was still so wrapped up in the dissonance of her appearance that I didn’t even lift my arms when she came to hug me. She insisted, locking her small frame against mine and putting her head against my chest for far longer than socially reasonable. She sighed with relief, but I filled with anxiety at the sensation—the feeling of her reminded me of my mother.

Mom.

Was she even still alive?

Ms. A. said, “You have made a brave choice. I was not certain, after all you’ve seen, that you would choose to remain.”

“Well, you put a gun to my head.”

“No. I put a suggestion in your mind and a gun in your hands.”

I wanted to argue with her, to let her know that playing Zen master now didn’t strip the past of its more Jim Jonesian bent, and that I knew the gun in my room wasn’t the only one she had trained on me, but then I looked at her face, at the wrinkles deepened by the strain of always living under the rules of war, and at the ways her eyes had misted over, and I realized she was both relieved and happy that I wasn’t another casualty.

I think she really softened me up with that hug.

Ms. A. turned away from me and approached Dara.

“I can see you’re distressed, dear. I can imagine how trying the last few days must have been for you. You’ve been stronger than anyone should have to be. I
know
Cassandra would be so proud of you.”

At that—the mention of Cassandra—I saw Dara’s face tighten. Her hands clenched. She stood up and widened her shoulders.

Oh, Ms. A., you are fucking GOOD. Whatever you just did, you put the fight back in your soldier.

It was then that I realized we would never escape.

Ms. A. walked over to the end table in the center of the room and picked up a remote control.

“I’m so grateful that you’re both here now, because there’s something that’s been troubling me this morning, and I think Mr. Doyle may be able to shed further light on this problem.”

The televised image shifted, blue sky and clouds replaced by the paused image of a peroxide-blonde reporter chomping at the bit to deliver what the bright red on-screen graphic promised would be BREAKING NEWS.

“And now a K-10 exclusive. Our own Mitch Cardell is live on the scene of a triple homicide just reported in the NoBu financial district. Mitch, what can you tell us about the scene there?”

“Thanks, Melody. Information is scarce so far. As you can see, police vehicles are still arriving and the crime scene is being contained as we speak. We know that there have been three deaths, and that the bodies were found in the alley behind me, adjacent to high-end restaurant Au Vin. Though police are not yet releasing any details, we were able to interview a local resident who agreed to speak with us on a condition of anonymity.”

They cut to a close-up swarm of pixels, the “anonymity” angle clearly being played by the news station to obscure the fact that their credible witness was, in actuality, a pickled stew-bum, his slurred speech apparent even when it was pitch-shifted to a lower resonance. I swore that the batch of yellow pixels on the screen had to be a piece of corn in the guy’s beard.

“They came into my home. So rude, man, you know nobody cares, but they woke me up anyway, and I thought somebody was digging into my buffet, but the moon was barely up, so the restaurant ain’t closed yet. You know. So I go around the corner of the trash bin to see what the noise is about and that’s when I saw it. This gorilla, I swear, biggest damn one I ever saw, and he’s got a guy pinned to the ground, squirming, one hand holding the guy’s wrists and the other smashing down on his face. I spot two other guys, but they’re already dead. You can tell. So, you know me, I’m not letting some monkey make me the next meal, so I tuck back until the slurping sound is over and then the thing jumped right up to the fire escape and disappeared. All I know is, Metro Zoo better send out some folks with elephant guns.”

A voice from offscreen. “Can you tell us anything about the condition of the bodies?”

“Bodies? Shoot, bodies was fine. Nice suits, all of ’em.” The stew-bum itched his beard, displaying what could have been a pixelated Rolex on his wrist. “It’s their heads that wasn’t. [Beep]ing monkey popped their heads open like some kind of nutcracker. Or skullcracker, I guess. Ha! Kind of thing, might drive a man to drink. By the way, you think I could…”

The station was wise enough to cut before The Dread Alley Pirate Cornbeard finished asking for his booze payout.

Melody from K-10 was back onscreen. “We promise to stay with this story as…”

Ms. A. had paused the broadcast and pulled up another show from her recorder.

“I believe it’s worth noting that this next report aired at the same time last night.”

Another talking head was on-screen, the man’s blinding porcelain veneers competing for info-space amid tickers, trackers, corner grabs, and a graphic reading HOSPITAL IN CRISIS.

“…while officials have not released information about the nature of the homicides, we can confirm that three patients in the St. Mercy intensive care unit were killed. Early reports also indicate that two hospital pharmacists were assaulted and the hospital’s entire supply of an atypical antipsychotic known as perphenadol was stolen.”

Dara gave Ms. A. a confused look.

“The hospital’s media liaison will be issuing a statement regarding the tragedy once the victims’ families have been notified. Stay tuned…”

Ms. A. paused the footage again and pulled up a third file. “This aired half an hour later.”

“Police are asking for assistance in identifying the man seen here, from closed circuit camera footage provided by St. Mercy Hospital. Though the man’s face is not visible in this footage, police say that the man’s missing left arm and substantial size—he’s estimated to be around seven feet tall and weigh about four hundred pounds—may be enough to aid in identification. Viewers with any information about this man are asked to call…”

Ms. A. flipped the screen back to the idyllic drifting cloud setting and turned to look me in the eyes. “I think now you can understand why I’ve been troubled.”

Because you live in some underground tunnel prison system packed full of undying agents of the Vakhtang? Because you look like you’re supposed to be dropping little kids off at lacrosse, not threatening the life of one of your very confused captives? Or is it the thing with the corn in the guy’s beard? Because I agree, it’s gross.

I said none of that, of course, only raised my eyebrows inquisitively and hoped she’d continue.

“Dara related your story to me during your last period of recovery, and I think there was more veracity to it than we’d originally suspected.”

There’s a feeling you get when the death of others makes people believe what you’re saying is true, and it is far from vindication. I nodded my head, then asked, “So what are we supposed to do now?”

“Well, we have to follow our assumptions. So, assuming that you’re right, and Delta MedWorks has been funneling massive amounts of money to Dr. Tikoshi for the work that resulted in the creation of these things…”

“Wait.
Things
?”

“Yes. You saw the reports. They were both live on the scene within minutes of each other. St. Mercy and Au Vin are miles apart. And only in the latter report was the assailant said to be missing an arm. So we must assume that the thing which launched the assault on the hospital and stole the sacrament was the same which attacked you and the other men on 45
^th
.”

“But I stabbed that thing in the neck. It had collapsed.”

“Something that large, something with that kind of appetite…perhaps its neck is not so densely packed with vital elements. I could show you a man in room twenty-eight who has thick parallel scars running across his throat, and he’s still very much alive.”