In the Deadlands (6 page)

The other girl now. “Where're you headed?”

“Nowhere now. We're here.”

“This is where you want to be?”

Another tug at the arm. I shook it off and answered the pale-eyed question. “It's as good a place as any.”

“Deet....” said Woozle, and she had that tone again. Plaintive.
“Deet...!”

“Christ, you're a nuisance, Woozle, you know that? What do you want?”

She pushed hair back out of her eyes, looked at me, wetly. “Deet, I want to go home.”

“Then go, dammit!”

“Uh-uh, Deet. Not without you. Deet, I'm scared.” She lowered her voice to a point where she was almost mouthing the words. “Deet, these people scare me.”

“It's all right, Wooze. I'm here.”

“That's what I'm scared about. You're
here
. I don't think you should be.”

“You starting that again?”

She lowered her eyes. “No. I'm sorry. It's just that—”

“Aw, look—” I knew she wanted me to touch her then, but I didn't. “Look, this'll only take a minute. Promise. Then we'll go. Okay?”

She looked up with tear streaks. “Promise?”

“Promise,” I said, and touched her chin. “Just don't nag me, okay?”

“Okay, Deet. I'm sorry.” She sniffed at her sleeve.

I looked back at the girls. They had long stringy hair, like they were hiding behind it. There was something funny about the shapes of their mouths too. I smiled, sort of, as if to excuse the Woozle.

They didn't smile back. Okay, I didn't care. They took up their questioning where they left off. Questioning? What was this anyway—a test? Why did I have to pass a test?

“Hey,” I interrupted. “I didn't come to talk. I came for the kick.”

“We know. You'll get it. But it's...uncool to just kick and run. You've got to talk to us first. We like to talk.”

“I don't.” I looked at their eyes.

“But we do,” they answered patiently.

“Look, I got the cash for it—just give it to me and we'll go.”

“Don't want cash,” said one.

“Want you,” said the other.

“Huh?” I said.

And, “Deet!” said Woozle. “Let's get out of here.”

I ignored the voice at my sleeve. “What're you talking about?”

“We want you. To talk to. That's our price.”

“Oh. I thought you meant something else.”

“Uh-uh,” she said.

“Good. That's not my bag.”

“Not ours either.” She rearranged herself on the mattress. They looked at me again. Hungry. Patient bitches, weren't they?

“What is your thing?” they asked.

“I don't know. Just being me, I guess.”

“But who are you? Do you know?”

I shook my head. To clear it. It wasn't making sense any more. If it ever did. “Hey, enough of this already. Where's the hit I came for?”

“We're giving it to you,” said one.

“We're trying to give it to you,” said the other.

“Right now,” added the first.

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “Uh-uh, I'm not buying a shuck. I haven't smoked anything. I haven't dropped anything. So far, all we've done is talk—”

“Yes, yes,” she had a voice like a movie geisha, all treble and no bass. “That's it. A
communicating…
thing.”

“Huh? I don't…? I mean, it doesn't.”

She cocked her head. “It is essential that—”

Something was wrong; the whole thing was all tilty-slidy and kept creeping off at the edges. I tried to yank it back, but it wouldn't. Somehow I kept missing the undertones.

They were ignoring me. They were looking at each other and talking softly, words like, “...doesn't want...needs a tangible...”

The first one shook her head, as if in disagreement. “...
does
want...”

“...doesn't...”

“...
does
...just doesn't know that he...”

The second one shook her head now. “No...needs a tan gibble...trib won't work unless...must believe...”

The first one nodded at that. “Yes...is necessary...give something...”

The second one made a suggestion.

The first one glanced up sharply. “...not...”

The second one: “...what else...trib is trib...he wants...we give...”

“Trib is not trib...this bite is...”

“Bite is bite is bite...” snapped the second. “Want not hear about it...”

“Possibility for ickle-ickle-ickle...”

“Am aware...am aware...am aware...”

“Rather try communicor again...” insisted the first.

“Won't work...won't work...doesn't want...doesn't want...” The second one seemed to have the upper hand in whatever it was. At last, the first one gave in and they looked at me. “Okay. We give.”

“Great. What do we do? Smoke it? Drink it? Eat it?”

“None of those,” they shook their heads.

“Then how—?”

“Rub it on,” said one. The other was burrowing around under the mattress. “Take off your clothes,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Take off your clothes. That's what you have to do.”

“You're not putting me on?”

“You want the hit?”

“Are you going to take one too?”

They shook their heads. “We're already on ours. We don't need yours.”

“Oh.” I still didn't move to drop my clothes.

They waited. “Are you shy?”

“No. It's just that—”

“Would you like us to take off our clothes too?” one asked. The other didn't wait for me to answer, but dropped her robe (how come I hadn't noticed that before?) to the floor. She was as sexless as an eight-year-old boy. Flat chested. I stared, yeah. No curves, nothing. What a bring-down. A super bummer. A beautiful face like that and no bod. No hair, no nothing. The other was just the same, she'd dropped her robe too, only she was wearing black briefs. She didn't move to drop them. It wasn't necessary. My curiosity was dead.

“Well?” she asked.

“All right.” I shrugged out of my shirt, started to fumble with my belt. “Hey, Wooze?”

“Yeah?”

“You coming?”

“Huh?”

“Take off your clothes...”

“Uh-uh, Deet. I don't want any. Thanks.”

“Aw, come on. I don't want to go alone.”

“No, Deet. All I want to do is go home.”

“Don't be a drag, Woozle. Do it.”

“I don't want to.”

“But I want you to.”

“Deet, I'll go anywhere you go, Deet. I'll never leave you alone. Promise. But please, don't ask me to take any more stuff, Deet. I don't like it.”

“How do you know? You haven't tried it.” I pulled her to her feet, started pulling her clothes off. She tried to resist at first, then realized it was useless. The army coat, the baggy
jeans, the T-shirt, and soiled underwear fell to the floor. She stood there naked and wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. “Sit,” I said. She sat.

I kicked off my shoes, then dropped my pants and underwear all in one motion. Sit, lift the legs, and slide them off; one foot, then the other. The two of us sat naked on the mattress. Ready for action. Whatever the action was.

Woozle was clenched in on herself, arms folded across tight little breasts. I don't know why she was ashamed. She had more than these girls did. No matter, she kept her nose into her knee and sniffed, wiped it across her leg.

I turned to the chicks. (What happened to the two guys who were in the room? Where did they go?) “Okay, we're ready.”

One of them stepped forward (there was that funny smell again) and held out a jar that looked like a cold cream thing. I didn't take it.

First, I asked, “How much?”

“Enough,” she replied. “Enough for two.”

“No. I mean, how much do I owe you?”

She cocked her head in puzzlement. “Nothing.”

“Uh-uh,” I started to pick up my pants. “No free rides. Not for this head.”

They exchanged a confused glance. “Why?”

“Anything free's got a hook in it. Like the first jolt of H—and that's not my bag. Don't plan on getting hooked on anything.”

They looked at each other again. “Okay. Twenty dollars.”

“Twenty?”

“Two rides. One yours, one hers.”

“Yeah,” but I was still suspicious.

“You want it? Or not?”

I sniffed. That was the source of the funny odor, like old orange peels. So were the girls. “What is it?”

She shrugged. “No name. Just is.”

“And I just rub it on.”

She nodded. She held the jar in her two hands and waited.

“No hook in it?”

“If you don't want it, we don't put hook in. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “No hook.” I still didn't like it, but I wanted to try it. The smell was getting deep, deeper. I wanted to feel what was at the bottom.

The decision was made. I pulled the twenty out of my pocket, creased it between my fingers to straighten it, and tossed it over. The jar was heavy in my hands and it had a slippery feel.

Okay, we'd do the number. Just once. See what it was and that'd be it. Course, that's what I'd said about acid the first time too. The top unscrewed greasy, and suddenly the funny smell was
intense
. It was sort of like ozone and sort of like flowers.

The girls were sitting again, hardly even watching. As if they'd lost all interest after making the connection. I turned to Wooze and offered the jar to her. She didn't look up. She didn't stand up.

“Just rub it in?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” said one of the girls. I couldn't tell which, I wasn't looking at them. “All over. Cover everything you want to take with you.”

“Except the soles of your feet,” put in the other. “Unless you don't want to come back.” And with that, they both laughed. I didn't get the joke. Perhaps I would later. I took some of the goop in my hand and smeared it across Woozle's chest. I had to go down on one knee and push her arms aside to do it. She didn't resist.

After a bit, I made her stand up and I made sure that I'd rubbed her all over—except for the soles of her feet. “What's it feel like, Wooze?”

“Nothing yet. Just slippery.”

“Well, maybe it takes a little time. You do me now.”

She did. Her hands were dull and lifeless and spread the goop with no more feeling than shovels. She did it mechanically and uncaring, but she was thorough. I helped her a little bit, but it wasn't necessary. She was like a machine, running sensors all up and down me as if to memorize my body for later.

Then I was covered with the goop all over and the smell of it was overpowering. “Now what?” I looked at the girls, but they weren't there.

“Hold hands,” they replied. “That is, if you want to go together.”

Yeah, that sounded right. This was the new kick. This was what I'd been promised in front of Cannie's—a trip you could share. No more one-man-alone numbers. I was tired of sitting around in a room watching everybody else going in a different direction. I wanted someone to share my direction. Yeah, I was ready for it. Now, you could go and take someone good along to share it with you—and you could share theirs. I reached out for Woozle's hand. It felt different somehow. Tinier. Yeah, if you were going to share it, you should at least be holding hands.

I could feel the stuff now. Or, that is, I couldn't feel it any more. I couldn't feel anything anymore. I felt...
disembodied(?)...
no, that wasn't it either. Creeping cold warmth was seeping out around my edges, dilating into the not-quite.

My eyes, great multifaceted things, grew till they spread around the top and sides of my head and I looked in all directions at once. Woozle's hand looked back at mine. We stood half an inch above the floor and listened to water burning our legs.

What it was, was this—I was a pillar of fire, taken fresh from the freezer, standing still in the lightless and examining things in the reflected glare of (myself) and all was timeless until the water drops spattered into steam upon the hot. That didn't make sense.

But who cared? I was tripping. And Woozle was too. She was with me. She always was. Oh, yeah. We were in a tiny red cubicle—red from the frozen flame?— just one cubicle out of millions of identical tiny red cubicles stacked one upon another, left and right and north and east and yesterday and Tuesday and purple and—

FLASH!

Woop? What was that? Now the top of the room hung below us. We looked down the long tube at ourselves still holding hands. The red light seeped and pulsed and permeated it all. We were above and looking down and sideways at the little honeycombed rednesses below. Little black insects scraped within.

The whole city of shining black was below us. We looked down at them from our hot two-hundredth-story window, noses pressed flat against the glass, trying to push through it so as to see our own selves from the outside. Cannie's was only ten floors below. We watched the black uniforms herding them out of the building and into the street where they shot them. What a joke. Why hadn't it been listed in
TV Guide?

Ooh, that was almost a bummer. We hopped the up elevator at the top floor and kept going and—

FLASH!

—and again. What was that? Wow—whatever it was, it was. A desert hung below us. Above us. “Oh, Wooze, look at that!”

She looked. “Yeah, Deet, I see it.” Luminous flyspecks danced and skittered along a net of silver threads, in and out, patterns of streaking steel. Beyond it, the greater dark.

Another—

FLASH!

—and this time we're out in nothingness, looking at the whole marble. Why isn't it bigger? I thought it was bigger than that, didn't you? “Hey, Deet—I mean, Woozle, isn't that supposed to be bigger?”