Eating Memories (39 page)

Fighting his repulsion, Boyer knelt down beside the corpse. Woods was already stiffening. His right arm was lifted as though to ward off a final blow; his left rested at his side, defeated. Boyer forced open those cold, curled fingers and saw that Woods’ Passport had not been touched.

Should he dig the Passport out of the flesh? Boyer wondered. He didn’t know if he had the courage; and he certainly didn’t have the means. With his one good arm, he hoisted the inert body to his shoulder and, steadying himself on the fence, got to his feet.

Boyer’s fatigues weren’t making a crisp sound any more. In the humid night air sweat gathered in his armpits and rolled down his sides.

He hurt all over, not just in his wrist, although that contained the piano riffs of his agony. His left rib cage was a hot sax of an ache; the bruise on his thigh was a periodic, throbbing bass. From the pressure of Woods’ belt, the weary fingers of his right hand strummed a minor seventh of pain.

This was high adventure, all right, Boyer thought with an hysterical, verge-of-insanity grin. What would he say to the police, assuming that the presence of Woods’ Passport would Abracadabra the gates apart?

You got trouble on the south, side, sheriff.

But Dallas already knew that. That’s why, years ago, they’d erected the security system across the moat that was the Trinity.

Dallas hated the poor. And now Boyer, his ID gone, his credit card discarded with his backpack, was trying to go back home without so much as a penny in his pocket.

“Sssst.”

The urgent hiss sliced through the quiet night. Boyer almost dropped his burden.

“Hey, Dak,” Russell said, creeping around the comer of a nearby house.

Boyer nearly wept with relief. Russell had come to save him.

“Hey, you all right?” The moonlight cast Russell’s strong, high cheekboned face in silver and shadow. His eyes shifted towards Woods’ inert form. “Hate to tell you, man, but I think he dead.”

Boyer nodded vaguely.

“Shit, man. That real nice of you,” Russell said, obviously overwhelmed. “Carrying your friend back like that and all.”

“I . . . I just . . . “ Boyer began and then, to his embarrassment, began to cry.

“Look,” Russell said. “Come to tell you I ain’t charging you nothing for this hunt.”

Boyer blinked away his tears. “I think my wrist is broken, Russell. I’ve lost my Passport somewhere, back there. Can you hide me for a while? It’s late, and I’m hungry.” Suddenly he was sobbing again.

“Wish I could, man. You ain’t so bad, Dak. But you see the way it is.”

Boyer didn’t quite understand what Russell was telling him. Was this all about a business deal, then? And like an honest contractor, the guide was offering a refund? “I thought—back there— you know, we might have something between us.”

Russell gave him a sharp, startled look.

“Friendship,” Boyer said quickly. “I thought maybe we understood each other despite—well, despite our differences.”

“Oh, sure.” Russell replied with too much alacrity for the agreement to be sincere. “But Maxie, he a brother. You just a rich whitebread, Dak.”

The guide must have seen the disillusionment on Boyer’s face, because he added quickly, “But you okay for a whitebread. You really almost a gentlemen.” He reached out to shake hands, but saw that Boyer was hampered by a bandaged wrist and the fact that the other hand was engaged in balancing a corpse.

“Anyway.” Russell let his arm drop. “Just want you to know I taking the charge off your Visa. They bill you for it, you let me know.”

He gave Woods’ body one last glance before he turned and jogged away. Boyer listened to the pit-pat of the guide’s old Nikes as he disappeared into the night.

Boyer stood there a moment, Woods a dead weight on his shoulder. Almost a gentlemen? Russell had utterly forgotten that Boyer was one mean cockroach killer. Hefting his burden, Boyer walked on dejectedly towards the Jefferson Street Bridge.

The moon had set by the time he reached it; and his legs had begun to fail. He shuffled down the bridge, wading through odd snowdrifts of paper; and at the glow of the gate he stopped.

The egg-sized camera shifted its gaze towards him. The green
activated
light came on. “Hello, Mr. Woods,” the computer said with artificially-intelligent, if dimwitted, gaiety.

Boyer trembled before it, waiting for the gate to open. The night air was seeping up from the river, carrying with it an odor of silt and dead fish.

“Oh,” the gate said happily. “But then I see you’re deceased.”

The green light went out. Disinterested, the camera swung away.

Boyer let Woods fall to the asphalt. “Goddamn it, let me in! I’m Dak Boyer! Salesman for Echo Electronics! I live on Lombardy Lane!”

The keen gaze of the camera was focused at the air above Boyer’s head. If the security gate were listening, it was listening for the mutterings and shufflings of insurrection and not Boyer’s hysterical shouts.

He beat on the door with his good hand, his fist sliding on the surface. The skin of Dallas was glossy, designed to resist graffiti and all other vulgar dirt. “Please.”

The gate wasn’t listening to entreaties, either. It hadn’t listened to them when it was constructed; and it certainly wouldn’t bother to listen to them now. The camera eye had watched a town burn. There wasn’t much that could shock it anymore.

As Boyer dropped wearily to his knees, his gaze fell to one of the white bits of paper and riveted on it in bewilderment and dawning alarm.

AUTOMEMO

FROM THE DESK OF CHAZ GARBELL, it said.

And below that was printed the message:

WARNING. DON’T GO ON A HUNTING TRIP WITH THAT ASSHOLE DAK BOYER. HE’LL PANIC AND LEAVE YOU BEHIND.

My God, Boyer thought in shock. Garbell was decidedly still alive—the AutoMemo logged on to no other voice but its owner’s.

When his surprise ebbed, Boyer began to consider the message. That asshole Dak Boyer? He was as injured by Garbell’s written attack as he had been by Maxie’s physical one. He picked up one of the scattered bits of paper and read it carefully, word by slow, stunned word.

Panic? What did Garbell mean by “panic?” Maxie and his gang had been following at their heels, mayhem in mind.

Hadn’t they?

Perhaps Garbell had escaped. That idea was soothing, but it also rang with hollow hope. No. Garbell was too out of shape to run from his athletic attackers. Maxie had let him go.

Oh, shit.

Maxie had let Garbell go. And now the revelation of Boyer’s cowardice was scattered all over the Jefferson Street Bridge and possibly onto the immaculate streets of Dallas. Boyer glanced around. The bits of paper, conjured into being by Garbell’s indignant thumb on the REPEAT, spread around him like a messy, isolating sea.

His gaze snagged on the sight of Woods’ faceless body. Woods was no longer simply the prick from Victa. He was evidence.

Boyer lunged up, grabbed the dead Purchasing Manager by the back of his shirt and wrestled him one-handedly over the guardrail. The body dropped into the night.

Gasping, Boyer swiveled around to see the camera eyeing him curiously. The gate was evidently too polite to enquire about Boyer’s strange actions.

No. It would wait for the police.

Boyer whirled to face the dark, misshapen skyline of Oak Cliff on the horizon. Even though he was barefooted, he could run. He could hide. But that was a ridiculous choice. If he were found guilty of murder, Boyer would merely be sent south, anyway.

Behind him Dallas rose, a glowing, domed bastion. Caught between a salesman’s fear of rejection and tremulous hope of’ victory, Boyer sank to the concrete, his back to the fantasy castle walls, and sat in wait for the dawn.

Author’s Note:
Once for a con I was asked to write a short-short for inclusion in the book. This was my submission. Needless to say, they gulped hard, considered the language and subject matter, and very nicely asked for another.

He’d been running flat out in the darkness when his toe came to a jarring halt against some immovable object. The irresistible force of momentum kept him going; but only for a millisecond. Then—splat—his face collided with the ground.

The pratfall was of the Laurel and Hardy variety, a real train wreck topple with a lot of noise to it. Had it happened in the courtroom rather than in the dark of the woods, it would have been a thing of hilarity. The judge would have laughed. The other counsel would have laughed. And everyone would have had a grand old time.

As it was, Gary was a long way from the courtroom; a long way, in fact, from civilization.

The impact had knocked the air out of him; it was a moment before he could breathe. High up in his chest was an ache where an unfortunately placed rock had gouged a rib. Where the skin abraded through the weave of his virgin wool pants, an exquisite, raw pain flared.

Just a funny old pratfall.

Only maybe She had heard it. Maybe She knew where he was.

Somewhere in the back of the forest an owl hooted: soft, low laughter. Nearby came the sound of an acorn’s long, clattering plunge to the ground.

The fall had left him disoriented; stress had left him on a jittery, pseudo-cocaine high. It would have been good to rest a while, but he felt Her eyes around him. The cold breath of the wind lifted the hairs at the base of his neck. He got up and limped on. After a few yards he was jogging. A few more and he was running. Running again for his life.

He was making good time, keeping his arms tucked in, breathing through his nose. The Florsheims weren’t ideal for sprinting, but the forest floor was spongy. A sliver of moon rode high over the treetops, and by its glow he dodged the dark trunks that studded the pale, leaf-littered ground.

Three miles a day. Rain or shine. Three miles of jogging a day, kept up religiously. Other men would have sat down and taken a breather long ago, but Gary, old Gary kept going, his legs pumping, his nostrils syphoning in the moist, pine-scented air.

Other guys just didn’t have the stamina he had. That’s because Gary had control. In fact Gary had so much control that he disdained people who lacked it: guys with sloppy minds and beer bellies to match; women who didn’t keep themselves up.

He should have had control over Her, the bitch, if the instructions had been written correctly. It was the goddamned book’s fault, that’s what it was.

There wasn’t any trick to calling up old gods. Gary’d done it enough. Conjuring had started off as a parlor game in the frat house and later he’d used a little spell to help him pass the Bar. He’d kept his hand in, of course, once he knew magic worked; and habitually used it to make double sure he won an important case. Winning always came first with Gary.

“Kiss my rosy red one,” he muttered as he ran. Gary had played hardball with powerful studs; and no fat, ugly cunt was going to push him around.

A cloud passed over the moon, casting a shadow-blanket over the forest. Purblind, he slowed. When a branch slapped him in the face a moment later, he eased up again on his speed, dropping from a slow run to a cautious jog, and squinting myopically into the darkness.

He listened hard; but sounds in the forest were misleading. From somewhere nearby came the trickling music of water. Far away, in the underbrush, he could hear a huge body moving.

Big, yeah, he thought, cocking his head toward the sound.

That might be Her. Before She’d broken through the ring he’d cast in the secrecy of the forest, he’d seen Her for a moment—not the snake Goddess he’d been expecting, but something else. Something older.

There’d been a mere suggestion of spreading thighs, grotesque stomach and bloated breasts, a form more like the ancient Neolithic Goddess than the Goddess Crete had known. He had smelled Her, too: the low-tide reek of Her sex and the stench of sour milk. No. Mama Astarte hadn’t been keeping Her health spa membership up, and she hadn’t bathed in, oh, maybe millennia.

Astarte, Hecate, whatever the hell they later wanted to call her, she’d come from that old nightmare, the statues without heads and hands. Neolithic man’s Goddess was a two-bagger, but you had to hand him one thing: he believed in getting down to the essentials. He’d sculpted only the important parts: the tits, the crotch, the non-throw-away pieces of a woman.

The Minoans had cleaned Her up, made Her presentable, made Her nice. They’d given Her a wasp waist, a couple of bazooma hooters and a passable face; but what Gary had conjured had been the thing behind the snake Goddess.

He’d conjured a thing without a face.

Abruptly, terrifyingly, the ground disappeared under his feet. He flailed, then smacked the rocky stream in a real boomer of a fall. There was an enormous, whoopsie splash. Rocks punched him in the side, eliciting a splintering, bone-cracking ache.

He was hurt bad, he realized with some disbelief. Every breath he took exacted its attorney’s fee in pain.

Very slowly, very carefully, he crawled out of the stream and dropped, shivering, to the grassy-bank. Control wasn’t much on Gary’s mind anymore. In fact he had the primitive sort of animalistic urge to lay quiet so he could think about his wounds a while.

On the other side of the creek, in the darkness, he heard something quietly brush branches aside. An immense creature was breathing, there in sort of a low, snuffle-snuffle query.

What sort of feet and hands could She have? he wondered. What sort of head rested on those rounded shoulders? Was the rest of the being behind him so toss-your-cookies horrible that the ancients had been afraid to cast it in stone?

When he heard the splash of a heavy foot in the stream, he blundered up, the agony in his side coming in second place to the shrieks of terror in his mind.

He got up and ran. Not too well, of course. His form wouldn’t win any 10Ks. But the fast limp was serviceable.

Stupid. Stupid. She shouldn’t even exist any more. The bitch’s religion was dumb, something based on the biological misunderstanding that women got knocked up by themselves, by some sort of female magic.

Astarte’s religion got started because Neolithic man failed Biology 101.

As he ran, Gary started reviewing his options. Every situation had alternatives, law had taught him that. Hand the other guy a sliver of pie so you could keep the rest yourself. Give a little; take a lot. Those were the sort of odds Gary liked.

Gods liked sacrifices, so he just had to figure out what would make this one happy. Legend was that the ancient Astarte took her son as a lover and then, pissed off by God-knows-what, She’d killed him. In Crete the Goddess was depicted with snakes in her hands, and Gary knew why. Astarte wanted, what every ball-breaking, penis-envying bitch wanted. And he wasn’t about to sacrifice that.

Death or dick, huh, guy? he asked himself. Christ, what a no-win situation.

The pain in his side felt like someone had slid a hot knife into his ribs. As he ran he could feel the bones grind. He was grunting as he moved now, uttering small, feral sounds of agony, and searching the forest for friendly lights.

He was only an hour and a half’s drive out or Portland. Surely there’d be a cabin around. There’d be a fire in the hearth and some hot soup. A blanket and a quick ride to the hospital. She wouldn’t dare come after him, then. Her magic was outdated, completely illogical. Just like something a woman would cook up.

Had a bad fall, fellah, the guy in the cabin would say.

And Gary would chuckle a little, being careful not to jar his ribs, and then he’d say, Yeah, well. You know how hard it is to please some women.

When he got back home he’d find a spell to, get rid of Her. The old Neolithic Queen of Heaven wouldn’t do to him what She’d done to Her own son. And she wouldn’t be getting Her hands on his dick. Oh, no. Not unless he decided to be gracious enough to let, her suck it.

He imagined the blow job: that dry; lipless mouth, the needle-sharp fangs, the caress of a dry: forked tongue. Maybe not.

“I’ll roll over you like a fucking steamroller,” he wheezed with bravado the moment before his legs rejected the call to battle. He dropped into the ferns on his injured side.

“Jeezus,” he whimpered.

Right behind him he could hear Her wide, fleshy feet crackling fallen twigs, Her swollen body shoving branches aside. He lifted his head and caught a whiff of Her yeasty, cheesy stench.

He scrabbled out of the bracken on his hands and knees. She was close now, so close that he could feel the sour warmth from her body. Something tugged at the tip of a Florsheim and he wriggled his foot out of it.

He shoved his hand frantically into his pocket and opened the ivory handled penknife, tearing his thumbnail in his haste. Slashing backward to where the sound and the smell had been, he encountered empty, warm air.

Then, clear-headed even in his panic, he saw his way out. He’d just compromise here. Give Her a relatively minor offering so the self-indulgent slut wouldn’t take the whole ball of wax.

“Here, bitch!” he screamed, and brought the penknife down on his own outstretched hand. The honed blade sliced through the flesh of his little finger, snapping the bone. The knife was an expensive Swedish model and Gary had cut fast. The finger was off before he even felt the pain. Blood spewed, hot and thick, down his hand. “Choke on it!” he shouted and threw the finger over his shoulder.

He never heard the sound of the finger hitting the brittle fern. What he did hear, and what he knew he would never forget, was the wet, crunching noise of teeth on bone and the large sound of the swallow.

Then She was after him again. She caught at his other shoe and he clambered up and ran on in stockinged feet.

The night air was cold, and his damp suit flapped about him. After a few yards he put the penknife in his trouser pocket, shimmied out of his imported French jacket and left it behind in the dirt. A glassy pain had worked its way into the stub of his finger and settled down as though it were planning to stay awhile. Warm blood trickled down his hand to soak the cuff of his silk shirt.

A body too heavy for running, too fleshy for heavy exertion, kept pace with him through the underbrush.

Oh, fuck. He’d never make it. She’d capture him and everything he’d worked for would be gone: his Beamer, his condo, his seven-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year practice. Once it came right down to it, death wasn’t so much a terrifying thing as it was incomprehensible and infuriating.

The torment in his side slowed him to a dizzy, infirm walk. He ran face-first into a tree and bounced back, confused. The next tree he blundered into sent him reeling to the ground where he hit his broken ribs again.

“Give me a fucking break!” he wailed. But he knew She wouldn’t be happy until She had more. And sometimes, of course, you had to cut your losses. Taking the penknife from his pocket, he slapped his hand against the rough bole of the oak and carved into his left ring finger.

The second amputation was harder. His strength was fading, his aim a little off. He had to hack at it five fumbling times to get the damned thing off.

He didn’t throw the finger at Her this time. When it dropped with a sad rustle into the dead leaves he simply left it there. He walked on, bleeding and dazed, cradling his maimed hand to his chest.

That had to appease Her, didn’t it? Wouldn’t She get the idea now and leave him the hell alone? That was fair, wasn’t it? People would stare at that hand now. In court they’d look at it in disgust, or even worse, pity. They’d talk about him behind his back.

Poor, old Gary, they’d say. What do you imagine happened to his hand?

She’d happened. She’d emasculated him. Men would treat him like a worthless gimp. Women would catch a glimpse of that hand and turn away. No more harvesting his crop of one night stands in the rich fields of the singles bars.

He started to cry, the tears leaking as sluggishly as the blood from his stumps.

Behind him, he heard Her approach the tree and root in the leaves like a pig after a truffle. A moment later he heard a greedy crunch and then heard Her walk on.

She wasn’t hurrying now. She was biding her time. Enjoying her conquest like he enjoyed his heady courtroom victories.

“Please,” he whispered. It wasn’t a word which came easily to Gary, but he said it with the correct amount of entreaty all the same. “Oh, shit. Oh, please,”

She was still stalking him. And he knew why.

The first two sacrifices had been easy. She wanted to totally cripple him. He couldn’t give her the whole hand—that would be stupid—but he could give Her the hand’s usefulness. He’d give Her his golf game, offer up his grip on the tennis racquet, his mastery of his ski poles.

Blundering around in the darkness, he found a sturdy trunk, took out his penknife again and cut deep into the webbing at his thumb.

Suddenly there were lots of blood.
Beaucoups
of blood. It spurted out of the incision like water under unexpected pressure, hosing him with sticky heat.