Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 Read online

  “After the man stopped screaming, he asked, ‘What the fuck are you?’ to which the Kraken had no response, not speaking English, and all. Instead, he experienced the man’s fear and granted a wish that the Italian couldn’t articulate and that the Kraken didn’t really understand. He gave the man the strength of the demons of the deep—”

  “Bullshit,” I interrupted. “Can we just skip the script and pick up the pace? I could knit a sweater in the time it’s gonna take, or at least hire someone to do it.”

  “Sh!” Honey spun around, eyes all squinty and judgmental.

  “Fine. Please excuse me.” I pulled a smoke from my purse and lit up.

  “There’s no smoking in the pit!” Eddie yelled. He’d pulled out a hand mirror from somewhere and was eyeing me suspiciously.

  I butted the cigarette and cracked my knuckles. “Go on then.” Gil prodded me and passed up his flask. I don’t normally imbibe on platelets but this was proving to be a long ride and, well, I’d forgotten my hooch in the car.

  “Levi,” Eddie continued, “gifted Alfonse with all the strength and wisdom of the aquatic demons and for the low low price of just three of his young sons. That’s where yours truly comes in. Vinnie and Frank and me were just young when it happened. The Kraken needed guards and he got ’em.”

  “That’s sad.” Honey picked at a name carved into the wall as we passed.

  “No way. We was totally into it. No more fuckin’ school. No more chores. No more watchin’ Mom drain the bottle every night. It was good.”

  We were coming up on the tunnel’s exit; it seemed to let out onto a platform. I could just see Vinnie waddling back and forth and another figure kneeling at the wooden guardrail. Praying perhaps.

  “Here she is.” Eddie pulled hard on a lever and the brakes pumped to a jerky stop. “Exit the vehicle and form a line to the left.”

  Honey was up and ready in an instant, while Gil needed to be nudged awake before he scrambled from the low seat and took his place behind me.100 The tall demon gestured for us to approach the guardrail quietly. The genuflecting figure was shrouded in a flowing hooded robe and mumbled unintelligible words. Maybe these were the basis for the Cosby Kids, I wondered. This new guy, Frank, was aping a decent Mush-mouth.101

  Lights shone down into the pit and illuminated a massive lake that butted up to a terraced hillside opposite us. A refinery stood as dark and silent as sculpture to one side. Vinnie started hopping.

  “He’s coming! He’s coming.”

  Gil and I looked at each other, repressing giggles— because we’re juvenile like that—and looked down the side of the pit at a mass of bubbles rising from a churning whirlpool. A mist surrounded the disturbance, as though the splashing was a result of some giant invisible waterfall.

  Then it surfaced.

  A slimy gray gelatinous thing.

  All ten feet of it. Tentacled, yes, but—come on—so less than impressive. I expected a creature at least the size of a Greyhound bus but instead I got a Volkswagen. It clambered up the pit wall, tentacles rolling out, connecting with the rock and dragging its bulbous floppy head behind. I wished I had a flashlight to check for wires or a track.

  It seemed legit, though.

  It tossed loose boulders aside with ease. They cracked against the pit and fell to the water, smacking like belly flops. Occasionally it would rear back revealing a jagged beak protruding from a thick meaty welt at its center. Sure there was no way this thing was going to take down a pirate ship, but it was definitely capable of giving a human body a good munch.102

  “Behold! Leviathan!” Eddie swept his arms wide with the pride of a religious fanatic.

  “I thought he’d be bigger,” Honey said.

  “What?” Eddie, Vinnie and Frank snapped in unison.

  “I just—” Honey shrugged.

  “Silence!” the kneeling brother ordered. He reached up, hands resembling flexible lobster claws, pulled back the hood—and since I’m making foreskin references, let me add—and uncovered his head, an engorged mass pitted with suckers and short stubbly tentacles where hair should be. The look was total venereal disease.

  We must have looked like the row of clown mouths waiting for water streams at those stupid carnival booths, from the shock the scene engendered. Gil glanced over at me and gagged. Honey covered her mouth. An odor wafted from the thing somewhere between cheddar cheese and seaweed and I ought to know; it was so bad I sniffed it twice, just to make sure.

  “What the fuck? I thought this was your brother?” I asked.

  “Oh. That’s Frank. He spends a lot more time with Levi than us. You get like that.”

  We didn’t even need to discuss it; the three of us stepped back from the guardrail like pageant contestants, completely in sync and mortified. I don’t take chances on blemishes let alone tentacles. Vinnie didn’t seem to want much to do with the approaching creature either. He leaned against the tunnel entrance, an unlit cigarette dangling from a sucker on his face and fiddled with a Zippo, occasionally sparking it up. Eddie spun at him each time, sneering.

  “You get like that?” I pointed. “Just from being around it?”

  Eddie waved me off with those exceptionally long fingers. “Don’t youze worry, you gots to be around it for more than a couple of minutes to notice any change.”

  The more I stared, the more they looked like ten tentacles hanging from his grayed hands. I imagined that slimy calamari slipping across the soft supple skin of my cheek and a shudder rolled through me that must have looked like a seizure.

  Gil touched my back. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be … when we get the fuck out of here.” I forced myself to look over the edge again just in time for the Kraken to rise up and peer at us with an inky eye the size of a bowling ball. Its tentacles swirled about us and coiled around the posts.

  Frank stood up and began conversing with the Kraken in a rapid-fire gibberish. The giant octopus responded in a garbled wet tone that rattled the platform and jettisoned thick ropes of spittle that splattered across the robed brother. He slipped in the puddles of saliva until finally he fell into a kneel.

  “Ask your question.” Frank wiped the goo from his mouth and flicked it against the wooden planks.

  Honey stepped forward and spoke with uncharacteristic hesitancy. “Yes, Leviathan, er, Levi?”

  “Mighty Leviathan,” Eddie corrected. “To you.”

  “Mighty Leviathan,” she parroted. “We understand you might know a way for me to see my dead brother’s ghost.”

  The brothers looked at each other. Eddie raised an eyebrow.

  Honey continued unperturbed. “It lives in this lady’s car. Is that possible? For me to see him again, I mean. Even for just one time?”

  Frank turned to the creature and let loose a flurry of burps and gagging noises.

  The Kraken slumped back from the platform and hung from its arms, placing its full weight on the supports of the deck. It creaked and shuddered, but held firm. A long sigh gargled from Levi’s throat.

  Silence.

  I looked at my watch, at my skin. More than a few minutes had passed, and since I already had the gray skin down under my body makeup, I wasn’t looking forward to any appendages sprouting like discarded asparagus or some shit like that.

  “Can we—”

  “Shut up!” Eddie demanded. “He’s telling Frank the answer to your query.”

  I leaned forward to see if I could make out a sound, but all I heard was a low hissing and the occasional spit bubble pop. The creature was watching us, but particularly Honey. Seemingly reading her. I remembered the story of the brother’s father and how the Kraken had read his mind. Still, I wasn’t certain the whole thing wasn’t a scam. These guys came across as con-men more than confident guards of a mystical beast. Yet moments later, Frank clutched the rail and rose on slippery feet.

  He turned to Honey. “Levi has spoken. There is a way the girl can see her brother again.”

  Honey clapped her h
ands and beamed.

  “Kill her,” he said.

  The girl’s smile disappeared, replaced by a sneer then a look of horror then a sneer, again.

  Frank shuffled toward the tunnel as though our tour had come to a pleasant, mutually agreeable end.

  “Hold up, Bud,” I said. “We trudge all the way up to this shithole, bring you a human heart. No. Scratch that. A fresh virgin heart. And all we get is a curt, ‘kill her’? What the fuck? I could have figured that shit out myself.”

  Levi let out a shriek that shook the platform and rattled the bolts that secured it to the pit wall. Someone was a little crabby.

  “No. No. Levi. We got it right here! Promise! Vin-nie!” Eddie reached behind him but his brother simply shrugged and backed away into the tunnel. Where he stood lay the empty Ziploc baggy, slimy with Granita’s coagulated blood. Beads of the crimson goo littered the surrounding boards. Vinnie must have gotten the munchies.

  The platform splintered and gaps formed between the wooden planks, already transforming from solid footholds to wobbly funhouse ride. We may as well have been standing on skateboards.

  It felt like a good time to run.

  I clutched Honey’s arm and pulled her toward the exit, Gil hot on our heels.

  “Vinnie! Get back here! We’re gonna need that hear—” Eddie’s voice was clipped into silence.

  In the next moment, a splash echoed down the pipe followed by a warble that could only be Frank screaming and the crashing dismemberment of timbers as the platform collapsed into the massive lake of acid.

  Shame.

  It could quite possibly have been the most exciting roadside attraction I’d ever seen.

  100 That’s right, Gil. You need to know your place. And it will always be behind me. Snap.

  101 Noba shitba.

  102 Mmm. Body.

  Chapter 15

  An Expedition,

  Wal-Mart Style

  No. Not bondage. Silly. Bonding parties. They are all the rage. Since we lose our families as a result of our various transformations, it’s only natural to want to develop connections with a carefully chosen few. Pharmacy is even starting up an Evening of Speed Bonding …

  —Constance Clarity on Dark Evening with Cameron Hansen

  “He’s not the only mystic, you know?” Vinnie squatted next to the Volvo’s front tire, ran his slimy mitt across the black tread. Mr. Kim glowered above him through a cloud of cigarette smoke, blending in at times. For a second, I thought the little creep had shivved a knife in it, but when he stood the object in his hand looked nothing like a knife. He noticed my stare. “Oh this? Cars are kinda my thing. Just checking the pressure.” He held out the gauge to show me.

  “I told him get away from goddamn car,” my ghosty friend said. “He no goddamn listen.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Badass.” I gave him my sassiest wink. Mr. Kim was still getting the hang of profanity, but he was catching on. I stomped over and made like I’d kick him away from the car if he didn’t move.103

  “Don’t!”

  I kicked the air in front of him, causing the little welt to flinch. It’s the small things in life that make you feel good, like a hug.

  “I guess I have difficulty listening to someone who’d throw their family under the bus like you just did.”

  He skittered away a few feet and stammered, “The-the-they’ll be fine. Just a little fuckin’ wet. Side effects, you know.” He lifted his trouser leg to reveal a tentacled appendage. “Besides. I been lookin’ for an opportunity to get the fuck outta here. This seems to be it.”

  Honey stepped in between and interrupted the love fest. “You were talking about another mystic.”

  I reached for her shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s just get out of here.”

  She swatted my hand away. “Just wait. God.” She spat the G-word out like a punishment.

  “Oh yeah. Levi’s not the only seein’ thing around here.” Vinnie shifted from one set of tentacles to the other. Comfortable with his newfound upper hand.104 Pig. “Crow Res gots a fuckin’ shaman. And he ain’t no mooch like ‘the Mighty Levi.’ Got a job and everything.”

  “So where do we find this … shaman?” I was hesitant to give any credence to the guy’s story. For all I knew this was going to be just another in a string of fabulous cock-ups that seemed to be scripted for us by some unknown writer somewhere, some overweight forty-year-old loafing in cargo shorts and flip-flops.

  “He sweeps up nights at the deep Crow grocers. Youze go and find the emcee. He might have your answers.”

  “The emcee?” Honey asked.

  “You heard me. I gotta go pack. I’m fixin’ to get outta this here shithole. Got a girl waiting for me in Vegas.” He waddled up the steps of the trailer and slammed the door behind him.

  Gil and I gagged, but Mr. Kim just sighed and sank to a kneel on the hood. “Honey don’t look happy.”

  It was true. She’d been watching us interact with her brother, a solemn frown marring her pretty face like a hot zit.

  “Oh, Honey. It’s not like we’re going to go ahead with the Kraken’s idea. We wouldn’t do that.”

  “I know. It’s just that you both seemed so willing to give up.” She glanced off toward the lights of downtown Butte. “Maybe Wendy should have come.”

  Ouch. I won’t lie. Those words bit into my cold dead heart like an unwelcome memory. Much like when I’d seen them arm and arm. Or when they’d been chatting while stacking body parts like firewood. I wanted to tell her that Wendy wouldn’t have bothered to come even if she didn’t have a hole the size of a cantaloupe in her gut. That she would’ve eaten the girl if any of us had turned our backs. But no. Because I’m a good friend, I bit my tongue. Not off, mind you.

  “Wendy doesn’t like this kind of stuff. If there were a party she’d have been all about it.”

  Gil glowered. I chased off his judgment with a sneer and a hiss. He clucked his tongue and swung the Volvo door open. I put my arm around the girl and led her to the car.

  “We’ll find an answer. You’ll see Kimmy, again. And you won’t have to die to do it. I promise.”

  She met my gaze. “You promise?”

  “I promise. Now get in there and let’s get back into town.”

  Honey hopped into the backseat with a bit more spring than I’d expected. Maybe I had some maternal instinct, after all. You’d think Ethel would have stripped any of that away cleaner than the flooded pit mine behind us. But, maybe I wasn’t so much my mother’s daughter. I mean. I’m not my mother’s daughter. That’s what I mean. If I could just stop measuring my life against that dying woman’s, that’d be great.105

  “You’re going to have to mend this shit between you and Wendy.” Gil flipped down the visor and picked at his canines.

  “Why is it my responsibility?” I asked as I pulled out of the Berkeley Pit parking lot.

  “Um. ’Cause you’re the one being a bitch.”

  “How’s that any different than any other time?”

  He slapped the visor closed and turned toward me. “Because it’s directed at Wendy. You’ve been bitchy this whole trip. Bickering. Snapping. It hasn’t been pleasant, I can tell you. You’re not fooling anyone, you know?”

  Honey’s eyes avoided mine in the rearview mirror. “I’m not?”

  “No. This is all about your mother. Admit it.”

  “Maybe it is. But I—”

  “Just take care of Wendy. If you’re not up to it, I’ll take care of your mother when the time comes.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Sure. I’m one of your best friends, remember? The other one’s waiting for some relief from the tension.”

  I reached over and squeezed his hand, a rare tender moment between two friends plotting a dying woman’s murder. It warms the cockles.106

  Wendy and Fishhook were playing cards when we found them. Through the window of the RV, I could just make out his snorting laughter, between slurps of a Big Gulp. As we approached, I could see w
hat had him so elated. Wendy’s upper lip was coated with a swath of blood. The effect was not dissimilar to a bad Sam Elliot mustache, if he were a flesh-eating cannibal or enjoyed marinara in an altogether unhealthy way.

  “That’s attractive.” I plopped down next to Fishhook.

  “Body.” She sucked the last bit of gristle from her teeth. “It does a zombie good.”

  “How’s it working its way through?” I pointed to her stomach and the hole.

  “Not good. I’ve had to rig up a little system.” Wendy slid from the booth in a labored steady manner, opened her ratty western shirt to reveal a jerry-rigged poop bag attached to her severed intestine with twist ties and hair scrunchies. “The gas station guy was really helpful.”

  In more ways than one, I suspected.

  I stood up and hugged her. “Oh, sweetheart. Let’s get back on the road. The next big store we find, we’ll patch you up good. I see where you’re going with that, though.” I pointed at the self-colostomy. It seemed to be doing the trick since the shopping bag was nearly full. Wendy held the crinkly plastic like a bowling ball-sized tumor. It was not at all cute. “Nice work. Really.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No I’m serious. Sorry.”

  “Okay.”

  A quick phone call, 200-some miles and we located Scott in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Billings. The chain store seemed to welcome overnight camping and an armada of recreational vehicles was already moored around its atolls of light posts. Fishhook, who’d become a proficient driver and ad hoc member of the ghouly gang maneuvered the Winnebago into a space and I pulled in beside him.

  Scott rang my cell phone as I did.

  “We’re here. But I don’t see you.” I scanned the lot for the god-awful orange sports car.

  “We’re near the front of the store.”

  I opened my door and stood to get a look above some of the other cars in the lot. Despite it being nearly 10:00 at night, the store drew hundreds of customers. But there, near a corral of shopping carts, stood the hot ex-cop. Beside him the two decidedly luke-warm missionaries kicked the ground, their heads hung low.