Southern Gods (12 page)

The record was horribly scratched, as if Carver, in a violent spasm, had knocked the needle across the face of the record trying to destroy it. Or silence it.

I’ve got to know.

Ingram took a deep breath and placed the needle on the record.

The music was different from what he’d heard at Helios Studio. This piece was faster, uptempo, more frenetic. The player showed obvious skill, picking the melody in an intricate counterpoint to the rhythm plucked with his thumb. The record skipped drastically, needle popping over the scratches on the vinyl, jumping forward. More guitar, but now with another instrument, an instrument Ingram couldn’t place, maybe a horn, or even a human voice, but alien to his ears. The record skipped again, and there was singing.

Come on, rise up from the sodden earth

Come on, rise up from Death’s black hearse

That is not dead can eternal lie

And dying know even death can die

Have you seen the yellow sign?

Have you seen the yellow sign?

The record skipped and cast the needle back to the first of the verse, singing it again. And once again, Ingram found his muscles clenching, his fists tightening into stones. He had a lump in his throat, and tight bands across his chest. The wounds on his face throbbed horribly in time with the music. His body took up the rhythm and beat of the record.

The record skipped back to the beginning of the verse again, but this time, Ingram heard other instruments. Even though it was the same music, the same piece of vinyl on the record, the needle trapped in an infinite loop of music, Ingram heard something different from the first two revolutions; now he heard another voice. Ingram shuddered, unable to fathom the mouth that made those sounds. Then Ingram heard a thump, and he knew exactly what made them.

The body behind him arose, its dead mouth full of coagulated black blood, repeating the words along with the record. Ingram felt a horrible chill enter the room, a darkness that froze all his nerve endings. Ingram yelled, lunging forward and knocking the turntable away, the record flying across the small room and shattering into a thousand pieces. A hand grasped Ingram’s thigh. Fingers ripped into Ingram’s skin.

He threw himself across the table, sending the microphone flying and knocking over boxes of records. He landed hard on the floor, on top of cracked and broken vinyl shards. When he regained his feet, the dead man had rounded the table, arms out and face contorted in pain or malice, Ingram couldn’t tell.

Lumbering forward, black viscous blood drooling from his maw, the dead man reached to grab Ingram.

Ingram dropped to a crouch, fists up.

In life, the corpse had been a large man, stately even, Ingram thought, watching the blood drip from the dead man’s mouth. But not now. The ghoul made strange noises in absence of the turntable’s revolutions.

Tulu dundu nub sheb tulu onnu ia denu sheb tulu
, the dead man rasped. It came forward.

Ingram attacked, punching with both fists, alternating blows, right and left. He struck the man’s face, sending blood spattering across the wall, twisting the man’s head in a queer, rubbery angle. The dead man slowly turned his face back toward Ingram, an inhuman grimace stretching the face into something beyond horrible. Ingram lashed out again with his fist, making the ghoul’s head rock back.

The man who was once George Carver reached Ingram and grabbed his arm, its mouth open, black and gaping. Ingram bellowed and twisted. The corpse thrust forward its head to get closer to Ingram’s face.

He wrenched free of the man’s grip, his shirt tearing as he yanked himself away. He pushed the dead man back, and the thing went down, onto the piles of broken records. He grabbed its throat with his left hand, pinning the corpse’s head to the floor, and pummeled the thing’s face with his right. Over and over, Ingram struck the dead man, his fist falling like a blacksmith’s hammer—again and again—cracking the dead man’s bones, leaving the horrible face a ruined mess.

Ingram let go of the corpse and sat back, chest heaving.

All remained still, except for his labored breaths. He could make out the ticking of a clock somewhere in the building.

Then, inexorably, the dead man slumped to the side, shuddered, and began to rise. Its hands clawed the air in front of it, blind but still moving, groping.

Why won’t this fucking thing die?

Ingram forced the corpse back to the floor and struck it again, driving his fist into the bloody swamp of face. Again and again he struck it, fist pounding skull. Again and again.

Still, it struggled.

Finally, Ingram grabbed the corpse’s hair and slammed the head into the floor. There was a crack, and the thing’s arms spasmed. He slammed the head into the floor again.

The corpse stilled, and Ingram rolled off it. Holding up his hand, he lurched across the tiny room, over to the narrow door by the filing cabinets. In the small bathroom, he fell toward the sink, grimy and streaked with rusty water. Ingram ripped off his shirt, and cranked the spigot. Water spilled weakly from the tap. He jammed his fist in the flow, feeling his hand swell and throb. Tentatively he touched it, bones grinding together.

Fuck, a boxer’s break. Last thing I need.

He ripped off his shirt, doused it with water, and wiped the gore that spotted his face. Holding his dripping hand high, he walked back to the front office. The dead man stayed dead.

Ingram picked up the phone in the front office. He hit the plunger twice, and dialed.

After a moment he said, “Mr. Phelps. Yeah, I’ll hold.”

Then, “Mr. Phelps? Fine. I ain’t found Early yet, and don’t think I’m gonna to, least not alive.” He nodded in the dark of the room.

“There’s some strange shit going on over here. I haven’t found the radio station yet, but I’ve got a lead on this Ramblin’ John Hastur. Supposed to be playing a tonk this weekend somewhere around England.”

Ingram remained silent, listening. “There’s some things that’ll hit the news in a few days, ’bout KQUI, black radio station outside of England. Just so you know, I didn’t have nothing to do with it, just stumbled onto it, looking for Early. Yeah, he’s been here. But he ain’t here now. Okay. Yes, sir. No, still got plenty of dough.”

Ingram hung up, looked down at the tatters of his pants, his shirt. He ground his teeth.

I’m gonna make sure Mr. Phelps never gets his hands on any Hastur tunes.

***

He was sorely tempted to drive back to Memphis after leaving KQUI, to drive as fast and hard as he could down the small back roads until he came to the Mississippi, and from there run straight out of this deadly little backwater of a state. But his hand had swollen and turned purple, and he knew he needed to rest. He considered driving back to Lonoke in hopes of finding a doctor then discarded the idea. Instead he drove on to Stuttgart, the farm hub of the county, and checked into the Royale Hotel, an old Victorian whore of a building, down on her luck but still possessing a great figure. The desk clerk, a studious young man in bow tie and suspenders, looked at him suspiciously but took his money and told him his room number.

Ingram said, “You got a house doctor?”

The young clerk snorted and shook his head. “This isn’t Memphis, sir. But I’ll put in a call to Dr. Keene, who’ll make his rounds in the morning. What’s wrong?”

“Broke my hand.” Ingram held up the mangled fist and shoved it in the clerk’s face.

“Oh. Well… oh. I’ll put in the call, then. That looks horrible. We don’t have a doctor, but we do have an ice machine in town. We receive regular deliveries. Would you like me to bring you some?” The little man looked inordinately proud that somewhere in the building, water was in a solid state.

“Yeah. Ice.” Ingram pulled his hand back toward his chest. “And get me a bottle of whiskey, would ya? There’s a pal.” He shoved another ten dollar bill at the man. “Oh, and I’m going to need a room with a radio.”

“Sir, we don’t provide radios in guest rooms. The stealing is bad enough with the towels and linens—”

Ingram put his shattered hand on the ten, took it back, and slowly pulled a twenty out of his wallet. “You got a room with a radio?”

“Yes, the presidential suite has one.”

“Either let me have that suite, or bring the radio from it to my room. And bring the whiskey, and lots of ice.”

Ingram took the key and limped to the staircase.

He spent the next two days drunk, swollen hand submerged in ice, waiting for the event at Ruby’s on the Bayou. He drank and listened to the radio intently, slowly twisting the tuning dial backward and forward down the green lit face of the radio, filling the room with alternating bursts of song, advertisements, and static. The throbbing in his hand diminished but didn’t go entirely away; the cold water soothed it a bit, as did the whiskey in his blood. Occasionally, he stopped the roaming and listened to a full song or two, Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade,” or Wills’ “Roly Poly,” and then, like a searchlight, moved on, panning the dial down the frequencies until it could go no more then reversing its course on the radio face.

The first morning, a polite rapping at the door woke Ingram from where he slept in his chair. The doctor, a rangy, stubbled man who wore a stethoscope like a badge of office, entered and hissed in sympathy when he saw Ingram’s hand.

“I’m Doctor Keene,” he said brusquely, and he pointed to the rumpled hotel bed with the same authority of a captain—Cap Hap even—but without the joviality. Ingram rose from the chair and turned off the radio, moving like an old man, back stiff.

He sat on the bed while Doctor Keene gently probed at his hand. He tsked a few times, then looked Ingram in the eye and said, “Idiot. You’re too big to fight. If you win, nobody will think any better of you on account of your size. If you lose, no one will give you any sympathy. People love seeing a big man fall. And they don’t come much bigger than you.”

Ingram sat, slump shouldered, staring abjectly at the over-bright pastel painting hanging on the opposite wall as the doctor removed two sturdy wooden shims and a roll of heavy gauze and splinted his hand with quick, military proficiency. When he was through, the doctor dug in his pocket and handed Ingram a container of white pills.

“Don’t drink with them,” he said, nodding at the near-empty bottle of whiskey. “Or you might not wake up.” He took one of Ingram’s cigarettes from the bureau, lit it with a gold lighter, and smiled. “I hope you’ve heard something of what I’ve said to you.” He walked to the door, opened it, and exited in a swirl of cigarette smoke. When the door shut, Ingram opened the bottle of pills, popped two, and called down for breakfast and more ice.

The day passed in a haze of cigarette smoke and bursts of static. The whiskey bottle was empty by noon, and Ingram called and ordered another.

Near dusk, when the light filtering through the threadbare drapes turned orange, someone knocked at the door. Ingram peered through the peephole then opened the door.

A small man stood in the hall, smiling, hands on his hips, looking at Ingram. He had short-cropped, kinky hair going to gray at the temples, but his complexion was smooth except for the upward-turned lines at the corners of his eyes. Blue eyes. Notable for a black man. Those same eyes roved up and down Ingram’s frame, taking in all the details, lingering on his wounded hand and the scratches down his cheeks.

He wore a tan maintenance uniform, immaculate and pressed, with an almost military air. The pants were creased, and the black patent leather shoes polished to a high sheen. A large ring of keys hung from his gleaming belt. His name tag read Randall.

“You wanted a driver?” the man asked.

“You ever been to Ruby’s before?”

The man whistled. “Might be yes and might be no, depending on why you asking. Mabel didn’t send you, did she?”

“No. I don’t know any Mabel. I’m looking for someone other than you.”

“Of course you is. But I ain’t never seen anybody that looks like they’s looking for somebody as bad as you is looking for somebody. Just wanted to be sure you ain’t looking for me.”

“No. Not you. You been to Ruby’s? Know how to get there?”

“Course I do. I know every place where people congregate from here to Little Rock. I’ve been in every tonk and every dive and every saloon with or without a pool table that accepts Negroes and some that don’t. I can take you where you need to go.”

“OK. How long’s it gonna take us to get to Ruby’s?”

“Not long, an hour, hour and a half tops. We’ll get there for the show.”

“You know about it? This Ramblin’ John Hastur fella? You ever seen him before?”

Randall looked left and right down the hall, then said, “Think maybe we can talk ’bout this inside your room? Just so folks don’t think we’re crazy?”

Ingram retreated and waved the smaller man in. He freshened his own drink, then made another for his guest without asking, and handed it to him silently. Randall sat on the edge of Ingram’s bed, his bright blue eyes following the bigger man. He took the drink in a small hand—even delicate, for a maintenance man—and rolled the cold glass of whiskey in pink palms, then brought it to his lips and drank. He smiled.

“They call me Rabbit, might as well tell you that now. You welcome to call me that, or Randall, or whatever else you want to, but never call me boy. I ain’t your boy, and you ain’t my master.”