John Shirley - Wetbones

"Sure, like I can sleep when you talk about how this fuckin' crazy old hippy is going to come in and waste me while I'm sawing logs. Shit! Anyway, I think I remember something about how you're not supposed to sleep for a while if you get a concussion. If that's what this is."

"So let's get you to a doctor, dude."

''No. Drax says he's got a way to beat them. Let's check him out."

"If he's not just, like, hallucinatin' it."

Wincing, Prentice got up and walked to the window, and peered out at Drax. He was squatting between two of his kerosene lamps. Small white insects flung themselves at the lamp, drew back, and flung themselves again. The dawn was just adding aluminium filings to the blue steel of the sky. Drax said something inaudible, then cocked his head to listen. He rocked back on his heels, laughing, reacting to something that was said. By no one visible. Then he stood up, and stretched. Looked at the horizon. He stared into the white crescent of sun that showed over the hills. Then he turned, picked up a kerosene lamp in one hand and the shotgun in the other, and strode back to the shack.

Drax shouldered through the door, hands laden with gun and lamp – and paused to glare at Prentice as if he'd never seen him before. Then he seemed to remember, and grinned. "Yore wife got a great sense of humour. Says some damn funny things." He stalked past Prentice to the woodstove in the corner, hung the lamp on a nail, and dumped water from a bucket into a coffee pot sitting on the stove's white upper shelf. Some of the water spilled onto the stove griddle, and it sizzled into steam.

Prentice stared at him. After a moment, not caring much about the shotgun that Drax had leaned against the wall near the stove, said, "You're full of shit."

Drax nodded, his beard wagging. "Her name's Amy, am I right?"

Prentice shivered. "You found that out from someone else."

Lonny snorted. "You never told me her name. He be talking to Orphy, too, and he came back with some shit only Orphy know about."

It wasn't that Prentice disbelieved in the supernatural. Not after what he'd seen in the car. But he didn't want to believe Amy was… so close.

Drax took a brown sack of coffee from one of six stacked crates, all of them containing coffee, and dumped an unconscionable amount in the coffee pot. "Fuck you if you don't believe it, pal," he said cheerfully. "But how you think you found your way here? Luck? No more'n this boy did. I've been working on these here friendships for a while…"

They drank coffee and Prentice ate a plate of stale Oreo cookies, which Drax also bought by the crate. He declined marijuana. After drinking a cup of acrid coffee with a thoughtful look on his face, Drax hurried to the door, ran outside, and vomited explosively. Then he came back in, wiping his beard with the back of his hand, muttering, "Damn peyote do it to me most every time, when I drink coffee." And to Prentice's amazement poured himself another cup of coffee.

After they'd eaten, they went outside to pee. Prentice was feeling better. He pissed toward Denver's house, though it was hidden by the swell of a hill and trees and distance, and pissed toward Lissa's wrecked car, and spat once in that direction too. It did him good.

Then Drax said, "I want to show you what I got to kill them things with. If we got time to do it."

"What's this about 'time to do it'?" Prentice asked, walking with Drax and Lonny through the blue light of early morning, around the side of the shack.

"They going to reproduce like a motherfucker, so to speak," Drax said, "and if they get too far along we're dead meat. A wright. Here we go. What do you think?"

He flapped a hand in the general direction of the battered red '59 Ford pick-up. It was scored with rusty dents. Its front window had been knocked out. Its crooked hood was wired down. It had oversized tyres with big, stand-out tread. Some sort of old tractor tyres, never meant for a pick-up.

"What do I think of what?" Prentice asked, his headache beginning to pound again.

"The truck!" Drax said, impatiently, eyes wild. "That's how I'm gonna git 'em! What do you think?"

A Highway near Malibu

Garner was tired. He thought he could feel his bones bending with each wrenching turn the Cabriolet made as it shot along the freeway. Now and then the rising sun strobed in the hollows between hills and caught him a blinding flash in the eyes. He turned toward the west. His eyes were tired. His ribs ached. He was a mess.

But he was psyched, too. He might be close to Constance. Jeff Teitelbaum, at the wheel, was fresher than Garner. But Garner was less afraid. Garner was afraid of nothing but his addict.

"You know, Jeff," Garner said, "they might not be there. Your Mitch. My Constance. You could be wrong. Blume could be wrong. We could get trigger happy and kill some people who have nothing to do with this."

"Who killed Kenson?" Jeff demanded. "He mentioned the More Man. Denver is the More Man. Blume connected the More Man to Wetbones. It's that simple."

"I hope it is simple," Garner said. "But I doubt it will be. I really do doubt it."

If they were wrong, Garner thought, someone innocent could get killed. But he had a feeling – and it was something he hadn't felt so assuredly in years. A sense of guidance. Even the return to using cocaine had been guided, he suspected. He had to hit bottom again and see the true horror of it again. He had to come face to face with his own shrivelled faith, side by side with his bloating addict. He had been guided through that particular circle of Hades, through the Projects, through its punishment, and brought out again, and when he'd nearly stumbled back into the pit, he'd been saved first by a rip-off artist, who'd done him the favour of selling him bunk crack, and then the presence of another pastor out doing street work. And hearing the phone message at Blume's.

You should know, Brick had said, God's the only one who can arrange coincidences…

He was being guided here. He was sure of it. But he knew that being guided here was no guarantee of success, or safety.

The sad truth was, God was not all powerful. Not in Garner's estimation. God just did the best He could. And lots of the time it wasn't enough.

The Doublekey Ranch, near Malibu

It was neither day nor night, here. It was dark, but not dark as true night. It was dark as the dirty fog…

A thick, oily fog had gathered around the Ranch. Constance hadn't noticed it coming. Now, she watched it thicken as she sat on the wooden lawn chair, near the brick barbecue. Near the pool. The black girl, Eurydice, sat on the terrace beside her, nude and shivering, hugging her knees. Constance hadn't been able to get her to say much except her name. That was okay, too.

She wondered at the fog. She knew it was no natural fog. She could feel it on her skin, sliding over her with exquisite subtlety. A slithering feeling. And it was so thick and so dark overhead.

She saw, now, where it came from. It seeped upward from the pool. The glossy surface of the pool, so green it was black. Something seethed just beneath that surface. It was getting impatient. It was getting near time. It was nearly there…

There were others. Two women and three men, standing around near the door. They were just gray-black silhouettes in the fog. One of the men was playing with the buttocks of the shorter of the two women; another man was playing with himself. She thought they were looking her way, but she wasn't sure.

Music started up behind her, making her jump a little. She turned and saw the More Man and the Handy Man standing by Ephram's old ghetto blaster. Thudding, foreign sounding music. The two men had been standing there for awhile, she decided. Staring at her from behind.

What were they planning to do with her?