Trolley No. 1852 (13 page)

11, 9, 12, 12,
I thought desperately, then calculated each
number’s letter-equivalent:
“K, I, L,
L…”

“Yes, Mr. Phillips! Kill.
The thogg would then, by my mental command,
kill
Selina. Or, how about, say, 6,
21, 3, 11?”

I quickly made the
translation, and gulped, “
Fuck.
”

“Um-hmm. How would you
like that?” she continued to mock. “How would you like to watch the
motorman
fuck
your sister?”

The thought sickened me to
unto death. “I
beg
you, Miss Aheb. Don’t do that. I just watched a dozen of his
kind do the same.”

“Indeed, or perhaps I
could order the motorman to fuck
you,
Mr. Phillips.” She chuckled
shrilly, in a manner that actually caused the chandelier’s myriad
crystals to clink musically together. “The sight might very well
amuse me.”

“Let my sister have her freedom, and I’ll
consent to that,” I directed.

“Ah, there you go with your chivalry again.”
The bright eyes within the maligned face narrowed on me. “Tell me,
is that what you want more than anything? Selina’s release?”

“Indisputably, yes!” Was the obscene woman
toying with me, or did I stand some unfractionable chance of
getting my sister out of here? I stepped boldly forward. “Let’s
bargain. Quid pro quo.”

“So you’d like one thing exchanged for some
other, hmm?” she tittered inhumanly. “You regard your sister with
the utmost importance, Mr. Phillips, but surely you understand that
I do as well.”

“Then what could be more
challenging than a wager?” I argued. “It’s easy to be courageous
when one has the powers of telepathy and immortality, not to
mention”—I jabbed a finger toward the motorman—“the services of a
thing like
that
 at your beck and call. Hear me, Miss Aheb. To whatever
degree this evil
Abhorrescence
has imbued you with a likeness to the
Pyramidiles, you’re still
human,
are you not? Humans are known to be intuitive,
subjective, and often even
sporting.
You can’t deny the appeal
of a good wager, can you? So let’s do that, Miss Aheb. Accept my
challenge.”

A finger dawdled over a well-sucked areola
as she deliberated over my “challenge.” “Win or lose, I see nothing
to be gained on my part. How fair is that?”

My mind clicked like an ancient abacus,
desperate for a resolving quotient. “If I win the wager, then
Selina goes free, yet I stay in her stead.”

Selina objected, “Oh, Morgan, I could never
let you!”

“Silence!” I raised my voice to her, then
returned my proposition to the grotesque madam. “I will replace her
as the trolley’s conductor as well as the deliverer of your
necessary seminal rations via the periodic ingressions.”

“Is that
all?
” she
complained.

Never one given to
crudity, I opened my trousers without hesitation, and displayed my
genitalia which, I now had on unimpeachable authority, was larger
and more enduring than that of most men. “Being a woman so carnally
inclined, I would think you might find some gratifying utility…
for
this.
”

Miss Aheb’s sinister eyes went wide at the
vulgarian display, just as I suspected they might.

“My,” she uttered. “The rumours are no
exaggeration! It was reported to me quite early, Mr. Phillips, that
you are quite the sexual exemplar.”

Some attendant braggadocio
on my part seemed in order. “My prowess in the act of fornication
reduced five of your highly experienced prostitutes to
putty
earlier in the
evening.”

“So I’ve heard, while I’ve
also heard that the
quantity
of your dispenses of seed are most excessive.”
She rested her chin on her fingertips. “That would prove useful
around here as well.”

“And whenever you’re
feeling a thirst for pleasures of the
lesbian
variety, this thirst can
easily be quenched by any number of lascivious harlots residing
here at the club.”

“You make a most interesting point…”

“Then it’s settled,” came
my declaration. “
I
shall replace Selina and her duties as a servitor of the
Pyramidiles.”

The ill-skinned woman shrilled in amusement.
“Not so fast! As you’ve said, Mr. Phillips. One thing in exchange
of another. But I must insist that you earn the privilege of the
exchange. You’ve neglected to propose an actual wager.”

“A physical fight,” I said
and re-trousered my member. I looked at her in close to a glare.
“You’re more than just a woman, madam. You have
superhuman
powers which would seem
to level the playing field.
That
is my wager. I’ll bet that I defeat
you.”

She guffawed. “How quickly
the chivalrous gentleman turns to a cad. So you want to fight
a
woman?
”

“But you’re a
monstrous
woman, Miss
Aheb. The odds are clearly in your favor.”

“So if it’s a fight you
want, it’s a fight you’ll get,” she intoned. “A fight to the death.
Is that
sporting
enough for you? The way I see it, this can be the only way
your mettle will be proven sufficiently enough to
earn
the
exchange.”

Great Pegana!
I thought.
She’s going
to allow it!
“Yes! I want it very
much!”

“But it won’t be a fight
against
me,
 Mr. Phillips. I simply
must
insist that you fight my
motorman.
”

My spirits couldn’t have plummeted any
lower. “The thing is an alien monstrosity! That’s hardly a fair
fight!”

She coyly shrugged
and
har-umphed.
“Take it or leave it; and mind you, if you leave it, I’ll
have you consigned to the terrascape”—she purred akin to a
cat—“where the service thoggs will greatly appreciate your skills
in the act of fellatio”—and now she laughed outright—“as I’m told
those skills are rather
expert.
”

This seemed about as fair
as the Treaty of Versailles; nevertheless, I rendered the only
available reply. “I accept the challenge,” and then, hoping for the
element of surprise, unleashed every reflexive action within my
human capability, and launched myself at the very
in
human
motorman.

With all the strength and viciousness that
could be tapped of my 146-pound frame, I struck blow after blow to
the creature’s face and mid-section, exerted choke-holds and threw
finger-gouges to the hideous faceless face, and when I noted the
futility of all this effort, I then stooped so low as to kick the
thing repeatedly and as hard as I could in the groin…

All to no effect.

“Fight, damn you!” I
cried, now foolishly trying to lift its bodily bulk off the floor
and slam it down, but, lo, the sheer
density
of its flesh gave it an
unfathomable weight. More kicks and gouges, then, the impacts of
which were like striking sandbags. At one point, I even took the
appalling frontal tentacle between my teeth, yet even as it was
fleshy and pliable, I only succeeded in cracking two of my
incisors, for this proboscis was resilient as metal. During the
entirety of my assault, the uniformed thing only stood there,
unmoving; and I received the impression that it was
amused.

“Oh, Morgan, please!”
Selina sobbed aside. “Beg Miss Aheb’s pardon! I told you, the
thoggs are virtually
undefeatable.
”

This I was finding out the hard way, indeed.
As for begging the madam’s “pardon,” I realised that would prove as
useless as the fight I was now giving the monstrosity. “I’m dead,
either way!” came my harried shout. “But at least, I won’t die on
my knees!”

Meanwhile, Miss Aheb chortled from her
arrogant throne. Now I had taken to breaking furniture over the
thing’s head; I jabbed it with a shard of broken porcelain, even
tried to impale it with a snapped table leg (from an absolutely
splendid Thomas Sheraton library table, by the way, circa 1790).
The only result of this act was the splintering of the leg’s
sharpened end. Lastly, I spied on a wall-mount a sword (an
authentic Toledo saber, I believe), yet when I took it down and
attempted to cleave the motorman’s head down the middle, the
razor-sharp and exquisitely folded blade only bounced off…

“Oh, Mr. Phillips, you really are quite
comical,” the horrid woman chuckled. “The reason the thogg hasn’t
killed you already is simply because I haven’t yet directed it
to.”

“Then be done with it!” I spat. “I’m ready
to die!”

“Very well…”

No words, of course,
issued from Miss Aheb’s lips to trigger the motorman’s violence; it
was instead the merest numerical
thought,
and in the time it takes
lightning to fulgurate, the boneless arms of the beast were wrapped
around me, python-like; and I was dragged helplessly to the floor.
Any resistance I made to push off the thing’s bulk went
utterly without effect.

It mauled me; the terrifying “hand” sliding
into my mouth felt like the admission of a live octopus. Even
worse, though, was the action of its other hand: it began to
unbuckle its trousers…

Gagging, I now felt the morbid, carrotlike
pudenda growing to full hardness against my belly.

Miss Aheb amusedly
explained, “What you must know, Mr. Phillips, it that thoggs kill
what they fight… and
fuck
what they kill…”

This charming exposition
was scarcely perceived. I felt the hand fully in my mouth now and
even slither a length down my throat, whereupon it swelled so in
size that breathing became impossible. I sensed quite clearly that
the monster meant to effect my total loss of consciousness,
afterwhich it would surely commence to the task of
sodomizing me to death…

As the flow of oxygen
decreased, the frantic activities of my brain began to darken. It
was not with any conscious regard that I must have considered
something akin to this: If Miss Aheb had launched the motorman’s
attack merely by
thinking
 the proper numerical
sequence, what might happen if I do the same, remembering that
their language exists as a form of substituting numbers for
letters?

Fading away as I was, a
thought abstractly directed toward my marauder crossed my mind; the
thought was this:
4, 9, 5…

The motorman suddenly bucked, seizing up
with an inexplicable rigor. Then…

The wretched, bone-bereft hand oozed out of
my mouth as the motorman rolled off me, dead.

I struggled to regain breath and collect my
thoughts after being so close to death. An errant glance upward
showed, first, my sister standing tensely, hands clasped as if in
prayer. Her face was flushed with relief. A scan to the right,
however, showed Miss Aheb sneering from her throne,
none-too-pleased.

“I must credit your industriousness, Mr.
Phillips, particularly under such conditions.” Her eyes smoldered.
“4, 9, 5… D, I, E…”

I rose however shakily, looking down at the
dead thogg. “Surely I anticipated that the thing’s mind was weaker
than yours. You may have read my thoughts but I’m happy to see that
you could not occlude them. You’ve lost the wager, Miss Aheb.”

“So I have,” her accent trailed off to
meagerness.

I rubbed my hands together. “So what now?
You asked me to prove my mettle and I have indeed done that. Now’s
your chance to prove yours, yes?”

Here was the moment that
this entire evening of horror had built up to: I had overbound all
odds but, now, would this evil matron
honour
her end of the
bargain?

I wasn’t sure but it
seemed that the anti-light—this
Abhorrescence—
had noticeably dimmed
as if it somehow paralleled her spirit’s pulse…

“You were correct in your
appeal, Mr. Phillips. All humans enjoy the sport of a wager. I
suppose in a sense it’s not all that different from the purpose of
the Pyramidiles, who live off the psychic horror very much derived
from the
sport
of
torture, rape, and prolonged murder on a massive scale.” She sat
slumped in her grandiose seat, unenlivened and quite defeated.
“It’s true that I’m the ultimate traitor to the human race, as—for
the last seven thousand years—I live to serve the Pyramidiles; and
I will one day orchestrate the slow extermination of mankind, all
for the sustenance and pleasure of my gods.” Her lips drew up into
a thin smile. “However, I will keep my word. You’ve earned your
exchange; your precious sister shall go free, unharmed, and you
shall take her place…”

Was this to be believed? I sensed yes, in
spite of the desolate consequences in store for myself.

I turned to my sister. “You must leave now,
Selina, and forget me.”

She stood frantic. “But I can’t, Morgan! I
can’t allow you to trade your freedom for mine!”

“You can and will. I’ve lived my life; now
go live yours.” I handed her my billfold and keys. “Here is the
address for my room and the keys to the door. The rent is paid for
several months, and you’ll find a small sum of money hidden behind
my bookshelf. It should be enough to get you on your feet.”