Less Than Human (22 page)

"That's an Indian relic. Stealing Indian relics is illegal." Bobby took a drink from his beer while he rummaged around in a cabinet for a light bulb. He found one, inserted it, flipped the switch. This time the light popped on, filling the corner of the room with eye-stinging glare. Bobby closed his eyes against it. "Can't this wait; I had kind of a tough night."

"I know what you mean; I had kind of a tough night myself." Something was wrong with the foreman's voice. "But I really need that knife."

Bobby opened his eyes.

Martin Strickland was sitting in the recliner, dressed in the same clothes he had worn earlier today, only now they were crusted up with dried blood. Covered with it. There were long gashes all over his body, but he wasn't bleeding anywhere that Bobby could see. Flaps of skin hung from Martin's face like paint peeling away from a gray, weathered barn, revealing a surprisingly bright, shiny coat of red beneath.

"Mr. Strickland, for God's sake, what happened?" The words sounded inadequate. "You look…."

"Dead. It's okay, Bobby, you can say it. I look dead. I am dead." Rising from the recliner, Martin moved toward the back of the family room, swaying as though he'd had too much to drink. He was headed to where the light barely reached, but he stopped and looked back over his shoulder, his face crinkling up as though he had thought of something funny. "You wouldn't believe what happened to me tonight, son."

Crackling noises came from the foreman's stiff clothes when he started moving again.

"Mr. Strickland, you need a doctor."

"Son, I need an undertaker. Do you want to hear what happened or not?" His voice grew suddenly querulous.

"Yeah, I want to hear."

"All right, then. You see this?" The foreman's fingerless hand reached up and touched a thin line of red that wound around his head. His hair rested on it, like a badly fitted toupee. It began sliding off and he reached up, pushed it back. "That's where I got scalped by Billy Two Hats. Son of a bitch tied me to a cross and I bled to death." He flashed a grin, showing broken stumps where his teeth used to be. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I got buried, too."

"What do you say we go for a little ride, Mr. Strickland. I've got my car out front. Maybe we can get someone to take a look at you." Bobby tried to keep his voice steady, low, like you were supposed to with someone in this condition.

Martin swept his arm out, indicating the far side of the room. "I can't run off and leave my family, Bobby, not after they've come all the way from Dallas to see me. It wouldn't be right."

Following Martin's gesture, Bobby peered into the darkness, at the couch along the wall, at the two people sitting there. Neither one acknowledged his presence.

"Say hello to Doralee and Nicky."

Bobby saw something strike Martin's head from above, run down his ravaged face. In the dark it looked like a raindrop.

Martin sat down on the couch between Doralee and Nicky and pulled them close. "You'll have to forgive these two. They've forgotten their manners, so I guess I'll have to speak for them. It'll be the first time I ever got in the last word, if you know what I mean." He winked.

Everyone on the couch wore smiles, as though they were posing for a family portrait. In the dark, Doralee and Nicky were the perfect wife and son, except that every time Martin moved, their heads lolled to the side like as if they had no bones in their necks. Nicky's eyes were milky, exposed film.

Doralee had no eyes.

Martin followed Bobby's gaze. "She was always looking at other men, so I had to tear 'em out."

"Mr. Strickland, are Doralee and Nicky… are they…"

"Dead?" Martin considered the question. "In a manner of speaking, I guess they are. It just depends on how you look at it. Watch this, Bobby, this is better than that card trick I do at Christmas."

This was madness and the soft caress of fear touched Bobby's neck. "I don't think I want to see any more."

"Come on now, son; don't spoil an old man's fun. You'll love this." Martin's face shifted and somehow became younger as it took on the look of a sullen teenager who is being forced to be polite against his will. His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Hey, Bobby, you getting in Amy Warrick's pants yet, or does she still have the hots for Jesse?" The voice belonged to Nicky. There was no mistaking it. "I'll bet they're doing it right now in Jesse's pickup."

The foreman's ravaged face reassembled itself into more familiar lines. "You have to overlook kids nowadays," Martin said in his own voice. "You try to teach them manners, but they don't listen."

Then the face shifted again, became softer, somehow feminine. "That's because their fathers are always out whoring and gambling. I wouldn't call that setting a good example for a child, would you?"

Bobby recognized this voice, too.

Doralee was speaking now, using Martin's throat, forcing it several octaves higher. The words were spoken softly. "I guess you already know all about that, don't you, Bobby?"

Bobby bit back the absurd urge to say, "Yes, ma'am."

Another drop from above hit Bobby, on the arm this time.

Martin put his arms around his son and ex-wife, gave them a hug. "It's good to spend some quality time with the family unit, but it's hard to find any time, what with everyone doing their own thing these .days. This was really fortunate that Doralee stopped by with Nicky. She found him hitchhiking just the other side of Crown Point. She wanted me to give him a good talking to." Martin tousled the boy's hair. "I did. You won't give us any more trouble now, will you, son?"

"No, Dad," Martin answered himself, again doing his uncanny impression of Nicky.

Bobby picked up the phone and stabbed at the buttons. "Mr. Strickland, you just sit right there. I'm going to get you some help."

"Too late to help me," Martin said. "The phone's dead. I cut the wires myself."

Bobby kept punching the numbers as though he could make the phone work if he just kept hitting them.

"Too late to help my family," Martin said. "I killed them myself."

Another drop from above splattered on Bobby. The drops were falling faster now and he knew what they were.

Blood.

A shower of it.

All the time he and Martin had been talking, blood had been dripping from the ceiling, Nicky and Doralee's blood. Now there was a wide, glistening pool of it in front of the fireplace.

"I'd like to stay and chat some more, Bobby, but it's getting late, and I've got to find that knife." Martin climbed to his feet and, quick as a cat, grabbed Bobby by the arm and backhanded him, bent him back over the couch. "You always thought you could take me, you little prick. Well, here's your chance."

Bobby swung at the old foreman, but he never connected.

Something was coming from Martin's mouth. Spilling out.

At first Bobby thought it was blood, but whatever was coming from Martin seemed to have a life of its own. It struck out, like a snake. The liquid was black, cold like winter rain, when it struck Bobby in the face, numbing him. It forced open his mouth and began pouring down his throat.

Bobby felt the coldness undulate deeper inside of him, and it was no longer cold, it was liquid fire as it crawled along his veins and arteries, spreading out in every direction, pushing his blood ahead of it. He tried to shove the old foreman off him but they were connected now. The heat reached Bobby's brain. A sudden peace descended over him. For the first time since he was eleven, he wasn't angry.

Voices whispered to him and one of them belonged to his mom. She was just as pretty and nice as he remembered. Bobby saw that he was eleven and that he was standing in front of a movie theater. His best friend, Martin Strickland, who was in the same grade, was right beside him.

Martin nudged Bobby. "Ask your mom for a quarter so we can see the new Hopalong Cassidy."

Elizabeth Roberts heard Martin and smiled. "Didn't you two already see this one?"

"No, Mom, this is a brand new one."

She made a big production of digging in her purse. "All right, here's a quarter. Don't tell your dad."

They were about to start for the ticket booth when Bobby felt another quarter drop into his pocket.

"That's for popcorn and you'd better eat it, not throw it."

"We promise, don't we, Martin?"

"Yes we do, Mrs. Roberts." Martin crossed his eyes. Elizabeth laughed. "Go on, you two."

The first thing they did, once they reached the balcony of the huge, ornate theater, was to throw popcorn on those below.

"You've got a neat mom." Martin threw up some popcorn, tried to catch it in his mouth.

"She's okay."

They took turns trading punches on the shoulder until the curtain finally parted.

They looked over the audience… at the black-and-white Western spewing from the projector. The opening credits were rolling and the music began to swell as Bobby watched Hoppy ride onto the silver screen. Martin was ecstatic. Bobby should have been happy, and yet he felt uneasy.

He locked onto the movie. Felt the doubts recede a little.

There was a young cowboy standing in a saloon, there was music, bright lights, a crowd milling around. The young cowboy was kicking the skit out of some guy in black while everyone cheered him on. There was a pretty girl in the background who had been singing just a minute ago.

Bobby knew by the way she looked at the young cowboy that she was crazy about him. She just hadn't said it yet.

Something was wrong.

Somebody wasn't saying their lines right, they were saying the young cowboy had done his sidekick wrong, that he had stolen all his sidekick's money.

The young cowboy turned to the audience and yelled for the director. "This isn't in the script. Who's been messing with the script?"

Bobby leaned over to Martin. "What kind of movie is this?"

The man in black laid a gloved hand on the cowboy's arm and pulled him closer. Until their black-and-white faces were only inches apart. "You'd better play the scene as written, if you know what's good for you."

"Screw you." The cowboy hit him.

Technicolor blood spilled from the guy in black's mouth, ran back up his nose.

Rowing like a waterfall in reverse.

"Nice effect, but a little heavy handed, don't you think? Besides, they weren't doing effects like that in the fifties."

The blood turned back to black and white. "That better?" the bad guy asked. "You happy now?"

"Yeah, I'm happy now."

But Bobby wasn't happy at all. He had the distinct feeling that the bad guy was about to kiss the cowboy on the mouth, and that was sure a strange way for a bad guy to act.

The bad guy's hat had fallen off after the young cowboy had struck him, and Bobby saw the bad guy had been scalped. His head glistened wetly.

Bobby felt so embarrassed for the bad guy he had to look away from the screen. "I bet this never happened to Roy Rogers or Gene Autry." He watched as the good guy started to bend to pick up the bad guy's hat. The good guy never made it.

The bad guy pulled the good guy close, kissed him.

Bobby was bewildered. "Hey, Martin, isn't the girl supposed to do this scene?"

"Not in this movie."

Something red crawled from the bad guy's mouth, disappeared down the young cowboy's throat.

And Bobby felt sudden heat.

The saloon was on fire.

Onscreen, the edges of the old Western began charring at the edges, curling up like a photograph afire in an ashtray. Bobby saw the black-and-white flames moving toward the young cowboy, and he could feel the heat growing, becoming unbearable as it consumed everything in its path. The chandelier crashed to the floor, sending up a shower of sparks.

On the screen, onlookers began milling around. A woman screamed.

Somebody made a break for the door, a henchman for the man in black. He caught on fire before he made it, going up like a Roman candle, his screams adding to the already deafening din.

Bobby looked around the theater to see how the audience was reacting.

The theater was empty. Except for him and Martin.

The young cowboy fought on against the bad guy, just the two of them, while the saloon burned down around them. A heavy, flaming timber slammed onto a table and turned it into kindling, killing the three card players who were sitting there. For some reason Bobby thought the players' names were Kevin, Nash, and Boyce. They turned to ashes in their chairs and the last thing to disappear were their accusing eyes. The wind blew their ashes away.

Some of the supporting players at the back were also turning to ash. The fire reached the rest.

Then they were gone.

All of them.

There was only the girl watching the good guy fight the bad guy.

Bobby knew she wouldn't run from the fire, because she resembled Amy Warrick. He was right. She burned, turning to ash without a word.

Several of the columns that supported the saloon collapsed and part of the roof fell in. More flames sprang up. The place was an inferno now, black-and-white flames burning black-and-white wood.

The flames reached the cowboy.

Bobby braced himself.

The saloon vanished without a trace.

Stone silence.

Different movie, different player. A young boy named Bobby Roberts. There were colors, bright primary colors. Reds and yellows. The scene opened on a sunny day at the fair as the camera panned in close, catching a calf in a pen, the sweaty, scared face of the young boy.

A rodeo was under way.

The eleven-year-old was about to ride his first calf and fear was a hard knot in his stomach as he climbed aboard the animal. His nerve failed. He felt warmness run down his legs as his bladder let go.

The gate came open.

The calf threw him on the first leap.

He heard the sound of laughter as everyone in the stands saw the dark stain on his crotch.

Fade to black.

Different set. Same player. Later on in the night after the calf ride.

There was only one color this time: dark red.

The boy caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror on the wall and realized he was standing in his dad's bedroom holding a box of matches. The boy wiped the sweat from his eyes, winced at the tender flesh he felt there.