CHAPTER 2

​​​​​​​​​​​​NIGHT OF THE

FANGED ONES​​​​​​​​​​​​

The metallic mouths nuzzled my cheeks, my chin;  the pig thing began slavering (what kind of saliva? Oil?) and moaning like a banshee.  My vision grew more obscure still, and the dark figure riding the beast flowed together into a greater blackness, but then I saw a new colour creep into view.  It was darkly wine-red, with a great orange globe bursting in its center, an orb of flame streaking through the blackness, as if 'let there be light' had been spoken across the void.  I heard a shriek and smelt burnt flesh and heard a snapping sound like tree branches being broken.
     Either God or Darwin is walking through fallen Eden to save me but he is too late, I thought, and then I began to giggle at my foolishness.  I felt a light touch, another hand that was not skeletal but that of what I supposed was a human, cold but fleshly, brushing first my left shoulder and then my right, and then lovely warmth flowed through me and I slept. 

* * * * *

     I woke in a brass bed.  The room was dark and small, but I could see by the dim light several garish paintings on the walls, most of them ladies in indelicate positions, showing far more flesh than was necessary.  Each female was ghastly pale, with the most absurdly red lip colouring.  Red paper with a faded gold pattern covered the walls; gold-painted moulding that looked like great smiling mouths traversed the length of the room.   They were hideous, but a sight better than the mouths I had escaped. 
     The bed was unremarkable, a serviceable mattress with vile-smelling sheets and a stained pink coverlet.  Somewhere in that room,  I realized, there was something dead, dead and rotting because there was an horrendous stink all around me.  It was with no little embarrassment that I realized it was me, saturated with my own sickroom stench.  
     I tried to rise but I was still exhausted, as if I had had no sleep at all, and I fell back almost immediately.  I closed my eyes and the lids felt leaden and the balls beat with my heart, and I pressed my hands to them and released them and the pulse disappeared.  I attempted sleep but it would not come.
     Finally I sat up again and, still with great weariness, slung one leg and then the other over the bed and moved my hands up and realized that I had no clothes on, only my undergarments.  I was quite embarrassed that my décolletage should be thus exposed, and my hands flew across my chest to cover myself, and that was when I felt the leathery textures on my skin and saw that there were yellowed bandages on both my shoulders.       
     I caught the edge of one and began to pull on it and then a cold voice spoke.
     "Wouldn' do thet if I wuz you, li'l miss."
      I froze, eyes wide, my heart racing; I held my breath.   The room was deserted and the voice rang down from the ceiling. 
     "Yer fixin' ta belly up m'miracle."
     I found my own voice. "Who is there, please?"
     "Right polite, ain'cha?  I'm yer physician's all ya need ta know.  Been doctorin' since Methuselah wuz a pup, so I got me lotsa practice."
     "You--bandaged me?"
     "I do love edumacated women with a knack fer guessin'.  Yes'm, I bandaged ya, you wuz dyin' a' pisen so I thought I better.  Wanna stay away from them Marauders, li'l miss, they got thet junk flowin' outa ever' nook an' cranny."
     "That thing riding on the pig was a--Marauder?"
     "Head a' the class, li' lady.  At's whut they look like, them an' the Porcinapines, which is what we calls them critters they ride."
     I swallowed hard, began to tremble again; doubtless I was suffering delayed shock.  I remembered the hand now, the human--and was it human?--touch in the midst of the nightmare.
     "May I ask who--"
     "Okey-dokey, reckon ya done talkt 'nuff fer me ta git a sample.  Wancha ta feel at home, li'l miss.  Gotta go, got me Aces an' Octopi ta play."
     I tried to stand and the blood rushed to my head and I sat on the bed again. 
     "No, please!" I said.  "Please do not leave--"
     The voice began to fade.  "Now don't you fret.  Nurse'll see ta yer ever' need an' comfort."
     The voice was gone.
     The light in the room brightened, even though I had touched nothing and no one had entered to turn a switch.  The illumination was soft yet vivid as day, and was not, as far as I could tell, gaslight nor oil lamps.  A different voice spoke.
     "Now you just bundle yourself straight into the bath, my dear.  There is nothing to be gained by undoing all of the doctor's good work."
     The voice was--
     "Well, I am waiting!"
     So familiar--
     "Great heavens, girl, do I have to come in and escort you to the tub myself?  Ah, I see the difficulty now."
     My voice.  My voice. 
     A sound of a great rolling locomotion, like drunken men playing at ninepins.  A shivering that shook the bed and the pictures on the wall.  A shadow passed into the light.
     A nurse of some kind.  She moved too fast for me to flee and she took my arm before I realized it.
     She was mounted on great brass wheels but she had rolled into the room without need of any track on the floor.  She was made entirely of metal: a juggernaut of bolts and plates, with wisps of steam on all sides of her.  Pipes sprang from her torso in all directions and curled around her like smooth golden vines.  She wore a starched white uniform and gloves, and her touch was very gentle.
     She shepherded me toward a great brass tub that lay behind the bed; then she extended two of her multiple arms--both metallic tentacles--and a gush of steam emerged from her stomach. 
     A rush of heated water shot out from the ends of her extremities and she swirled the twin waterfalls until the mist was thick all around the tub.  Then she raised two different arms which disgorged brass pipes that curved and joined and described a metal circle that hung in the air until the circle sprouted four legs that shot downward and rested upon the floor.  Another blast of stream and a cloth emerged from the edges of the ring and dropped like a theatre curtain.
     The tub was full and hot and completely enclosed for privacy. 
     "There now, better?   You get bathed--never fear, your bandages are quite waterproof--and straight away I shall bring you some hot soup and bread.  You have had a frightful ordeal but it is all better and you are quite safe here."
     "Who rescued me?  Can you tell me--"
     "I am sorry, Miss, but my memory is limited to those facts given me by the doctor; I cannot answer non-pertinent questions at this time.  Now, you get clean and meanwhile I shall see if Cook cannot find something nutritious for you."
     The light dimmed, at the bidding of no one, and was replaced by a pinkish glow which filled the room with warmth. 
     "There," said the automaton, "better still.  We have tried to keep the room comfortable; I am sorry for the confinement but the doctor felt it was wise.  You are hungry, are you not? 
     "Yes," I replied, "I am famished."
     "You poor dear.  You are our first outsider, you see, so we are rather hit and miss with our menu; how very lucky that flock of chickens survived the Big D___n Hole."
     "I beg your pardon, the what?"  I was shocked at such profanity speaking in my own tones. 
     "Not a word more now.  You need rest and quiet."
     "Where am I?"
     "In Cemetery, my dear."
     "I am in a cemetery?"
     The thing giggled.  How very odd to hear my own laughter when I was not included in the joke.  Or was I? 
     "No, my dear, our town is called Cemetery.  We have never had a live one before."
     I suppose I should have been terrified at that, but I was too astounded to feel much beyond pverwhelming surprise.
     "We do want to find out about you, whatever we can," said the Nurse.  "Anything you would care to share.  In you go."
     I stepped behind the curtain, slipped off my underthings. 
     "Just toss your clothing my way like a good girl" said the Nurse. 
     Full of misgivings, I threw what remained of my garb out through the curtain.  Then I slipped into the tub.  A brass wire cage sprang from the water, with bar soap and a sponge. 
    A tremendous gust of wind and hot steam hit the curtains, as if a massive ocean wave had collided with the room, and I ducked my head under the water.  After a moment my curiosity and my need to breathe got the better of me, and I raised my head and peered out the curtain. 
     The rank sickroom smell was gone; the bed was covered in clean linens, the sheets turned down, as if I were in a luxurious retreat for the unspeakably wealthy.  Thick bathtowels lay on the spotless coverlet. 
     The nurse was gone.

* * * * *

     Miss Gibbons was lecturing again, in that thin wispy voice I so loathed.  She repeated each sentence so we could faithfully transcribe it in our notes.
     "Moliere wrote plays of comedic satire . . ."
     We wrote as she whispered it a second time.  Moliere wrote plays of comedic satire . . .
      ". . . and Tartuffe is perhaps his greatest character in terms of appearance versus reality . . ."
     . . . and Tartuffe is perhaps his greatest character in terms of appearance versus reality . . .
     A truly hypocritical horror, he masquerades in many faces . . .
     A truly hypocritical horror, he masquerades in many faces . . .
     Unlike the black-clad gunman coming down Main Street who has but one face . . .
     I looked up from my writing tablet and saw the man. 
     He was taller, starker than the Marauder but seemed every bit as skeletal and his face may have been human but it was white, a filthy bleached shade, as of a fish's stomach still covered with grit. 
     And his weapon!  A massive gun barrel--and it was only a barrel, with no mechanism or trigger to speak of--and from that metallic shaft emerged dozens of tiny pipes that curved back around the man's body and were apparently hooked to his waist, perhaps fed by his gunbelt. 
     I started to scream when he came near me. 
     He was walking straight at me and he wore great mud-encrusted hip boots and his clothing was blacker than the night except for the silvery studs.  Somehow I knew he was Death and horror and pain and the barrel of his weapon had the power to perforate me out of existence. 
     I could not imagine how I came to be in the main street of the town; I thought I had been asleep in a brass bed.  Perhaps I was sleepwalking. 
     The sky was leaden dark but there was plenty of light from the street lamps, which had the same balmy glow as the lights in my room. 
     The stark man stood in the center of the street and great black shadows flitted over him and he looked up and raised his alarming weapon skyward, his eyes scanning the heavens.  One airy shadow gained substance and flew towards him but at the last moment it swerved and swooped past his head.  He did not duck but I did, since the shadow then dived towards me. 
     It was like a bat but with a blood-red leathery wingspan and a skull-like face and great devilish horns, and as it swooped about me it hissed and spat upon me.  A fine greenish mist settled on me and I was feeling a bit lightheaded, as if I needed to lie down, when suddenly an horrendous gush of liquid crashed upon me like a tidal wave.
     I fell to the ground and coughed and choked and finally was able to gasp in some air, and I looked up to see the man lowering his weapon.  The bat thing hovered between us, but it seemed afraid, flitting nervously between him and me.  Then the man spoke, not to me, but to the bat. 
     "Ya keep thet g____m s___ offa her, ya son of a b____ an ya might live through the night."
     In terms of profanity, at least, the bat looked to have better courtesy than the gunman, who crisped my ears with his awful speech.  I trembled, as much from fear of him as from the chill damp of the filth he had sprayed on me. 
     The bat flew off. 
     The man raised his weapon to the dark skies and yelled, "Thet goes fer ever bloodsuckin son of a b____ in yer brood!"
     The shadows swooped towards the man and began to circle him. 
     Surprisingly, the man lowered his weapon, bent his ear as if listening.
     "Yer g____m right ya better back off.  Ya b______s do the right thing fer once."
     It was quite incongruous to hear a man with such ungodly language speaking of the right thing and I am afraid I giggled at him.  He turned his horrific gaze full upon me.
     "Yew don't know nothin'," he drawled.  
     Then a single night creature detached itself from the group and hurled itself at me.  It bared hideously blackened fangs and I saw its red eyes glinting and I screamed and covered my face.
     I heard a crack and a crunching sound.  I opened my eyes. 
     The thing was held fast in the man's grip.      
     "How hungry is he now, ya think?" he yelled to the winged host above him. 
     Then he clutched the struggling monstrosity with both hands and snapped its neck.  It fell bloodied and quite dead and I screamed again and that's when the real screaming began. 
     I sat up in bed and saw nothing in the blackness but I heard a great deal: the insane yawps outside, unlike the screams of my nightmare, were genuine enough.  Someone--some thing--was torturing another, howling thing out there. 
     I threw my blanket aside; I was surprised to find that I was fully clothed again, all but my feet. 
     I rose, still very unsteadily, stood until my eyes got accustomed to the void; I tiptoed around the foot of the bed, whispering my feet along the carpet towards the doorway. 
     My foot touched something furry and I yelped and looked down. 
     Slippers.  A pair had apparently been left for me; I slid them on my feet, then reached for a shawl that lay draped across a chair. 
     The howls outside my window redoubled, two creatures tortured or perhaps three. 
     There were two doors to my bedchamber.  One led into the hallway whence had gone the Nurse; the other, in the opposite wall, stood next to a window.  As I looked out the casement I noted that there were stairs below; this door led from the second story down a side staircase to the ground floor, and perhaps a back alleyway where I could escape.   
     I decided to forgo all the native hospitality being shown to a "live one", and I slipped out the door and went cautiously down the creaking wooden stairs towards the alley.  A dead end, exactly as in London, but better the devil you know.  I stepped onto the red sand, felt it crunch under my slippers.  No idea where my walking boots had gone to; 8 and 6 up the spout if they had taken them. 
     The street below was lit faintly by the sanguine full moon, but the brightness from the street lamps spilled into the alleyway, making the shadows even starker.  I stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs, uncertain what to do or where to go. 
     I blush to admit that I badly needed to relieve myself after my nightmare.  I might have availed myself of the chamber pot before taking my improvised flight, so I had no one to blame but myself. 
      There!  At the end of the alleyway, a portable WC, what the Western Americans call an outside house.  I stole towards it, tried on tiptoe to gaze through the crescent moon carved in the door, without success; I listened with my ear against the wood.  I was in extremity by then so I gamely shouldered the door open. 
      The noisome atmosphere inside nearly choked me; I went native, as one says, very quickly, then slipped out again, vowing never again to neglect a chamber pot in preference to that infernal shed.  I gasped with relief at the night air. 
     Then the howls split my ears and the outside house shivered and cast down dust and wood chips, and I backed away and looked up to the night sky.
     Crouched upon the roof was a monstrous grey wolf, its body covering the top of the structure completely.  Its flanks were striped with red-bleeding lashes.  Its lupine eyes, at least from my vantage point, were green, a stark contrast to the red eyes of the Marauder and the bat-things.  Perhaps at Christmas the townsfolk hung the heads of these beasts together for decoration.       
     It had not noticed me and I stood breathlessly still.  I heard a purr-like growl; I wondered if I should be wiser to press myself against the house's wall to be less conspicuous or to remain where I was and hope for the best.
     "ASA!"  The voice rang down the alleyway.  "ASA!  Git yer dumb harry a__ offa that g______m s____house, ya mangy fool!"
     My ears rang with the all-too-familiar language and I lifted my eyes toward the voice. 
     The man stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight.  The warrior of my dream; my nightmare that would end with my death was apparently coming true after all.  Cold he was, and filthy white as a ghoul rising from a grave, with a faint red tinge around his lips.  His face was stone, with bristling whiskers all around, and his eyes were black and unfathomable. 
     "Don' move, ya idjit," he said, more quietly, and it was clear I was the idjit.  "Dunno what the h___ yer doing with yer fancy a__ in th middle a' th street like some two dollar wh___ but y'aint gon' live mor'n two seconts if ya make a move.  Hear me, ya dumb b_____?"
     I had never been spoken to that way in my life, certainly not by some illiterate ghostly bumpkin with a gun that looked like a metal rhododendron. 
     "I beg your pardon--" I began.
     "D___ yer eyes!" he shouted.  Then I realized the truth of the matter.  I had alerted the wolf to my presence like a fool. 
     I looked up and saw that the creature was readying itself for a leap and realized I had but moments to live.  Then a stream of purplish water struck the thing.  It engulfed the beast and then physically lifted it. 
     The animal was sealed in the water-stream which ballooned into a great violet globe, then the globe began to twirl , with the wolf inside, like a piece of grey and purple taffy.  I looked back and saw that the man's insane gun barrel was shooting out the engulfing stream and he twirled the barrel to wrap the creature further. 
     The liquid had an odd viscosity; it did not drip nor bead but flowed as smooth as wrapping paper around the beast.  And when the wolf was well and truly trapped (I admit I felt pity for it as it looked horribly confused in there), the gunman snapped the barrel to one side, and waterball and wolf went sailing together over the rooftops.  
     I heard a crash and a splashing as the satellite landed in the town square, and a great howl resounded through the night under the red-tinged moons and then faded.  There were a few murmurs from the street beyond and then silence, as if nothing unusual had occurred. 
     I looked fury at the gunman.
     "You should have killed him, you fool!  He might have savaged us both!"
     He set the gun barrel back into his distended holster and I noted his gunbelt, which had tiny bronze boxes instead of the traditional leather bullet loops.  He nested the weapon before he bothered to look at me, then stared for what seemed a full minute.  I was very uncomfortable. 
     "Yew don't know nothin'," he said, speaking against me twice in as many hours. 
     "I know enough to slay a wild beast that is threatening my life," I retorted. 
     "He'll sleep it off.   Git yer scrawny a__ up them stairs."
     I was furious and would have walked right up to him.  Perhaps to strike him.  Or curse him for a fool and no gentleman.
     Finally I said, "Your mother--has raised a very impolite and boorish man."
     He glared sheer fire and his reply was very sharp.
     "Get up them stairs, ya g_______m slut!"
     I was not entirely sure what the last word meant but doubted it was complimentary. 
     I turned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.  I whirled at the top and he was still in the street staring at me.  Doubtless ogling me from the rear, the cad.
     "You are no gentleman!"  I cried at the doorway.   
     I suddenly felt dizzy, perhaps because I had ascended the stairs so quickly.  I turned to the door and missed the knob and fell heavily.

* * * * *

     The Kid took a look into the eyepiece on Old Nellie and the scope done noble, separatin the blood into six chambers just like bullets in a pistol an you can test type and blood and organisms and cell count and cholesterol and the whole shootin match, only this time wasnt no good news, and I could see the Kid he was shook up.          
     Look all you want, still gonna be the Pestilence says I.
     Aint right he says.
     I says Weeel says I, come to think of it aint nothin right in this dogeatin world, so what the nation you gonna do?
     How long does she got?
     Mebbe six hours, mebbe less says I, spreads so damn fast.
     So shes a dead un?  After all the good time and trouble to save her? 
     Shes dead, kid.  Nothin on earth stopping it. 
     And I knew thet for the truth, cuz the Pestilence is doomsyday, ever single time a fatality. 
     Shell be cold by dawn, says I, tryin to be gentle.  Gotta live with that. 
     Live with that.  Hee, thats comical. 

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