The Collected Short Fiction

  Then both of the derelicts, having pushed the mannikin onto the sidewalk, began stomping on her face and assaulting her body with a piece of metal pipe that was lying on the ground nearby. What they found inside the mannikin turned out to be even more distressing to them than her contorted face or her eyes that looked back into theirs. For beneath its plaster exterior was an anatomically correct set of bodily organs, even if they too seemed to be made of artificial materials. If the derelicts had had the presence of mind, or any useful minds at all, they might have rationalized this horrific figure as a construct intended for use in the medical school at the university, which was only a few miles away. Instead they kept pummeling away at the unnatural thing, especially its face, until nothing remained but a heap of shattered plaster. They even left its clothes behind as they broke into a breathless, stumbling flight from The Mechanic Street Museum.

  While the episode with Mary was quite a success, if somewhat lacking in imagination (I had already used the mannikin theme in dispatching Perry Stokowski), the satisfaction I derived from its grotesquerie was undermined by my continuing failure to locate Richard. I had always intended him to be the last of The Seven upon whom I would visit my wrath. Now I was beginning to worry that something was wrong. Visions of a doctor with great white gloves were beginning to disturb my—let's admit it—hopelessly disturbed mind. I left a message of WORK NOT DONE on the voice mail of both his home phone and his cell phone. But Richard was not picking up my communications, I could tell. Forget it, I told myself. You—and you was me—should be turning your attention to the penultimate person on the list—

  Kerrie

  I found her sometime after midnight. She was parking her car in front of a club that—big surprise—catered to patrons of sadomasochistic impulses.

  The club, which displayed no sign to betray its name or nature, was located in the warehouse district not far from the river and was set up in a battered old building that I once might have looked upon as a ruin suitable for my meditations and my camera. But this building was alight with a hazy red glow, a private place halfway along a pitted road without streetlamps and under a sky that, for me in any case, was filled only with those dark constellations which put a black-out on all the stars above. And after my self-designed run-in with Kerrie, the sky would become even darker.

  Despite the sadomasochistic rationale for the club's existence, its decor had nothing of the oubliette about it, nothing at all to distinguish it as a palace of pain and humiliation. Some paper pumpkins and skulls had been strung over a small bar in anticipation of the upcoming All Hallows, although in every other respect it resembled an old-fashioned neighborhood saloon. Like the company where I was once employed, the owner of this operation was obviously dedicated to the standard business principle of offering his clientele the least (a few tables and chairs, some wobbly stools along the bar) for the most (a sky-high cover charge and outrageously priced drinks from the bottom of their respective barrels). Even this purported haven for the deviant, the outsider, functioned along the mainstream goal of commerce, always aiming for the fiscal ideal of everything for them, the sellers and sellers-out of the world, and zero for... well, everyone was 'them' to me now, at least in the sense that neither corporate nor even corporeal dealings were any longer my business.

  Or so I told myself, even though the whole picture was not mine to see... and somewhere in the darkness of that October night, Richard was still hiding from me in some dark spot where I could not find him, as I had so easily tracked down Kerrie to this hole-in-the-wall hangout. And I needed to find him—to finish up my work—before everything became for me one great world of darkness. Yet I continued to believe that my calculations were correct—the damage that was given to me to do was compounded at a fixed rate. And there remained enough principal in my account of worldly existence for me to complete the task I had started—none of The Seven (or myself) would ever see another sunrise; none of us would reclaim that hour which had been stolen by the daylight savings of the previous spring and was not scheduled to be returned for approximately another twenty-four hours or so. But what was an hour... a day... a year or ten? There's always plenty of time for the worst. Everyone is old enough to face their fate.

  And so was Kerrie Keene.

  She had just walked in the door, carrying in one hand a leather bag that was not a purse. Wearing her usual outfit, she swaggered toward the far end of the bar and leaned over to ask the barman, 'Is The Can here yet?'

  'He's waiting for you downstairs,' said the barman as he tossed Kerrie a key dangling at the end of a red plastic disc.

  Kerrie immediately strode toward a curtained doorway that led downstairs, which was a complex of rooms set up like a subterranean motel... and a very cheap motel at that. After moving down several hallways, turning left here and right there without the least hesitation, she stopped at a certain door and let herself in.

  On the other side was a small bare room that appeared in the same light of garish red that illuminated the bar upstairs and the corridors below. In the shadows of one corner of the room a short, flabby man was on his knees with lowered head, as if he were praying. He didn't even look up when Kerrie stormed into the room and slammed the door behind her. And he didn't look up when Kerrie threw her leather bag on the floor and stripped off her sport coat, revealing two skinny arms springing forth from a sleeveless T-shirt.

  'Hello, Can,' she said to the man in the corner, who still did not raise his eyes to her. 'I've brought something special for you tonight.'

  'Can,' I already knew from previous research (I had always been thorough in my work), was a pseudonym that to Kerrie, and to most of those around the SM scene, was short for Human Garbage Can. But before Kerrie could begin making use of this living receptacle, packing it full of that special sort of offal she had brought with her this night, she realized something was wrong: The Can seemed to have gone stiff as a statue. None of the usual words of worship and submission that Kerrie was accustomed to hearing at this point in the ritual were uttered by the short, flabby, and naked man. She walked across the floor and laid several slaps, both backhand and forehand, on The Can's pudgy face. But there was no response from the figure still postured as though in silent prayer.

  Then the door opened, and I walked into the room in all my black attire, including a zippered leather mask over my face.

  'You've got the wrong room, Masked Man. Take a walk.'

  The Masked Man stood heroically mute and perfectly rigid, staring at Kerrie through a pair of eye-holes with thick, almost surgical, stitching around them. Then he reached into his coat pocket and took out something small and circular, tossing it into Kerrie's hands. The second she realized it was a fresh roll of stamps, she moved toward her sport coat that had made a clunk when she first threw it on the floor. The Masked Man was quicker than Kerrie and pushed her against the wall, being careful not to push too hard, before she could retrieve her weapon. Then The Masked Man moved with all speed and pulled the firearm from Kerrie's jacket.

  It was a Glock.

  And it felt so fine in my fingers as I clicked off the safety and aimed the barrel at Kerrie's head. She had pressed her body flush against the cinder-block wall, standing as if before a firing squad. This was how I had originally imagined my work would be done. If it hadn't been for... paper? I was sick of having my mind harassed by paper moons and paper plates, paper products of all kinds both figurative and literal. Why couldn't I break through those dark spots and remember? Everything could have been so much easier, so much quicker, and far less grotesque for everyone concerned if things had only gone according to plan. Even now I was tempted to install the full magazine of the gun into Kerrie's body and leave it at that. But I already had other plans in place. I had been thorough, as always, in my research.

  'Do you know why he's called The Can?' I asked Kerrie.

  'Go to hell. Why don't you just shoot?'

  'I asked you if you knew, really knew, why he's called The Can?'
br />   'He pretends he's a garbage can. He eats... he eats whatever you put in his mouth. He swallows it and begs for more.'

  'Do me a favor and move a little closer to Mr Can,' I said, directing her toward the paralyzed figure in the corner. 'Closer still, Kerrie. Right up against his body, as if you were riding him piggy-back. There, that's close enough.'

  'Close enough for what?' she asked, a satisfying quiver of fear in her voice.

  Then I set my plans in motion... and her body began to sink down into his. She struggled. She even screamed. But this was not a place where screams were taken seriously at first. Besides, the door was heavy, and it was locked. I continued my conversation with Kerrie as a monologue, since she was sinking fast into the flabby man's flesh and had begun choking on her own horror.

  'You're right about Mr Can. He does eat whatever you, or someone like you, puts in his mouth. But he also eats other things. He's not just a garbage can, Kerrie. What you never knew about Mr Can is that not only does he have a secret life that he lives out in places like this. He also has a secret secret life that he would never have told you about. By night he's the human garbage can you know but probably do not love. In an even darker night of his soul, Mr Can is... he's, well there's just no subtle way I can say this. He's a cannibal. And soon you're going to be made one with him—your brain buried inside of his brain, your nervous system integrated into his, and your desires bound to his desires. Unfortunately you will be denied all muscular control. You'll exist something like a parasitic organism inside him. A tapeworm if you like. But he won't be bothered by you. He'll continue to eat as you've always known him to eat. And you will know that you are eating the same things. He will also eat as you never knew him to eat. There are others like him, and he is in league with them. Mostly they consume homeless persons who have fallen unnoticed by the wayside. Sometimes they give them a little help in their going. On rare occasions they eat living food. Are you aware of the word that cannibals who once occupied islands in the South Pacific used for "human being?" It translates as "the food that talks". Mr Can and others of his kind live to eat. I know that was never your style, Kerrie, but from now on it will be... as long as Mr Can lives. And you know what: he's even made special preparations with his fellow cannibals for the day when he will be too dead to chew his food. It seems to be their desire, don't ask me why, that after their demise they be buried naked in secret ground. After their life of eating is over, their final wish is to become food for other forms of life. It's rather spiritual, don't you think? The great circle of being and all that. Of course, just because Mr Can is dead doesn't necessarily mean that you'll join him. You're so much younger, so much healthier—even given your anorexic mania—than he is. I'm guessing that the little parasite inside him will outlive his body by a certain term, although I can't say how long that will be. Can you still hear me, Kerrie? You're sliding down into him so fast. It's almost as if you can't wait to get inside. Prick up your ears if you'd like to hear more.'

  But she was gone. And so was I.

  'Wake up, Mr Can,' I said to the man in the corner just before I left the room.

  4

  After leaving Kerrie and Mr Can behind in that shed-like room, I sent out my last message to Richard (WORK NOT DONE, in case you forgot), using every possible means of communication, including the barking dog in the backyard next to Richard's house, some writing in chalky deodorant on his bathroom mirror, and even telepathy, which I knew from the beginning of this whole heinous saga was not a strength of mine. But once again I failed to raise him by wireless means. And I still could not locate his position on my radar.

  The streets outside were now so death-darkened that I could no longer make my way on foot. Even when I switched to travelling by means of spectral byways, at which I had become so adept, I found that I was no longer master of these roads. All the routes that were familiar to me seemed to have changed, mostly into a series of dead-ends. I felt as if I were trying to negotiate a maze that was not taking me where I wanted to go but where it wanted me to go. And when I finally reached what I thought was the way to freedom, I discovered that I was still not outside the maze but at its very center. And that center was the old meeting room which was outside company space, even if it was deep inside the world of Richard the Minotaur.

  I reassumed worldly appearances and opened the door to the room. While always dim, the place had never looked dimmer to my eyes than it did at that moment. Nevertheless, I ventured across the floor of the room in corporate form. I walked to the table in corporate form. And in corporate form I took a seat at that table where, at the opposite end, sat Richard.

  'I'm glad you made it here,' he said.

  'I don't think I had much choice.'

  'But this is where you want to be. Nothing else really matters any more.'

  'I'm glad you're resigned to the facts.'

  'You mean because you're here to do some terrible deed?'

  'My very worst,' I said, although not as convincingly as I would have liked.

  'Your worst, I'm sure. All because I made you feel bad. That really proves it—you haven't learned anything. And after what you've been through.'

  'Illusions don't die that easily. Whatever I've learned doesn't really matter. I'm still Domino as long as you exist.'

  'You mean as long as you exist.'

  'That's right. You said that you knew I wasn't a dead man.'

  'Oh, that was just some simple detective work.'

  'Then why wasn't it done by the real detectives?'

  'Because they didn't know what I knew. They had you down from the start as a suspect in Perry's... Before I forget—why the mannikin hands? That was fairly crude.'

  'I thought it appropriate. What's the difference? All right, I didn't know how far I could take things at the time. Now tell me what it was the detectives didn't know.'

  'It was an assumption they made. Considering what happened to Perry, they naturally fat you were up and around in the usual manner of mad-dog murderers. How could they know that this was rather far from the case? When they ran the check on your credit card purchases the day you were... the day you resigned, they quite reasonably focused on your visit to the gun shop. They didn't consider it important that you later picked up a few things at that office supply store, although they did ask me if I thought this was significant. But I just shrugged like an innocent.'

  I must have given Richard the blankest look in the world when he started talking about the office supply store. I remembered buying the guns; I remembered buying the clothes. I remembered suddenly being back in my apartment that night—how confused I was, and how I was in such a terrible funk because I didn't know whether I was alive or dead. I didn't think I had the strength to pick up a piece of paper... and the idea of paper left a chilling echo in my mind.

  'Do you see now? You weren't able to remember buying those reams of paper,' Richard continued. 'It's strange how some things are just blocked from your brain.'

  'What would you know about that?'

  'Not as much as you, I'm sure. But I do have your interest now, don't I? So you're going to listen to me crow about how I deduced what became of little Domino.'

  'I don't have to listen to anything,' I said, pulling my Buck Skinner Hunting Knife from my pocket and laying it on the table.

  'Wow. That is a real hand-chopper. There are some people I'd like to use that on myself. Do you think you're the only one who has scores to settle? It's not a question of whether the punishment fits the crime, is it? Not to swines like us. It's just a matter of getting that pain out of your system... and into someone else's. It's a dark world. Nothing but darkness. And whose business is it but our own what goes on in the dark?'

  I wanted to be calm and menacing. I wanted to be a creature of murder-lust, a monster of all madnesses. I wanted to do things to Richard that would make the sun grow cold with horror. But I couldn't help following his script. 'Naturally I have my confusions about what I am, what I became. But I didn't expec
t to find myself wondering what on earth you are.'

  'Me?' said Richard. 'I'm a person just like you. Well, not exactly like you. You're a miracle man. You didn't know that. A medical marvel. As I was saying, once your presence at the office supply store was established, it only remained to check out in the local papers if anything else of interest had happened around those corners that night.'

  As Richard spoke these words a deafening sound came into my head. The sound of crashing and crunching, of metal and bone and screams and screams and screams. Then the sound of a roaring black river.

  'It was a bus, Frank. The last of the line for the night. The driver was fully exonerated, if you care to know. You ran like a big black bird right in front of him, as several eye-witnesses told the officers at the scene. You were literally mashed to a pulp, completely unrecognizable as a human being, let alone anyone in particular... especially since you weren't carrying any identification on your person. That wasn't very smart.'

  'Then I am a dead man,' I said aloud to myself.

  'Everyone who saw that gruesome accident thought you were. Some of them said they didn't know which was worse—seeing your body all smeared and twisted in ways no one should have to see... or finding out that you were still alive. Comatose, but alive. I visited you a few times. Of course there wasn't—I'm sorry, isn't—anything to see but a heap of bandages. And a rather small heap at that, blood pooling through the gauze. But the fascinating part was the brain waves you were putting out on the EEG. Before I got there, they didn't think there was any point in hooking you up to it. But I can play a pretty convincing medicine man when I want to. I told them I was a specialist and that I'd known cases like this before. You should have seen the look on their faces when that monitor started skipping and jumping all over the place. That was when I knew you were going to be a problem for me.'

  'How could you know that?'

  'That's a strange question coming from you, Domino. I might just as well ask how you knew how to do the things you did. I'm not requesting details. I heard Chipman's voice when he described Sherry Mercer's office. He saw something in there that I never want to know about. And that's not even considering what became of the young man himself. It was bad enough getting those "work not done" messages whenever another one of the group seemed to just disappear. But I knew what I was getting myself into when I hired you. You and the rest of them. But it was you, Frank. You were the blackest of the bunch. I could see it in you from the start. Believe me, I know all about it. We—all of us—are the darkness that dreams are made on. I'm not claiming that I'm special in any way. It doesn't take anything more than a pair of clear eyes to see what makes the world go 'round. I've known about it since I was a child. Was it my fault that I liked to stare into the shadows until they started to stare back into me? That I performed little operations on stray animals? I really did want to be a doctor at that time in my life. But when I put my hands inside those creatures I never expected to feel what was really in there. It wasn't until I was older that I knew what I had felt inside them was also inside of me—that there wasn't anything else inside except that darkness. I thought about killing myself... but that wasn't the way for me. It had other plans for my life, and there wasn't much I could do except carry them out. It's my kind that calls the shots in this world, but we didn't ask for the job. Most of the time we think we're making our own agendas, following assignments that come from our own brains... or "from above", almost never from below, except perhaps in those strictly legendary instances wherein some poor boob thinks he's made himself a deal with the devil. What a load of crap that is. I'm not looking for your sympathy, Frank. Wouldn't that be deranged? I just wanted you to know that I have some idea of what you've been up to, not to mention up against, these past few days. It was strange what happened with you, but I don't think it was an accident. Most people have no idea what goes on in this world. But you know what it likes. It likes fear and agitation and conflict and all that stuff that makes such good copy for those folks who are selling that sort of thing—never mind all the sideliners whose happy lot is merely to peek in the window of the torture shop of life. I wanted you to know that I knew about that too. That's all I had to say. So what now?'