Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

Linus made the hmph sound again and shook his head. “You know what you two are? You’re limb -ists.”

“That’s not a word,” I said.

“Then how can I say something that isn’t a word? Huh? Answer me that one, Kato.”

“ Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero ,” said the Reverend. “Godzilla, Rodan, and Ghidra. And it’s thirty-seven minutes into the movie before both Godzilla and Rodan first show themselves.”

Linus was visibly crushed. “I thought for sure you’d miss it. A three-parter . I’d’ve bet money you’d miss at least one of them.”

“Try another one.”

Linus shook his head. “No, thank you; one disgrace a night is my limit.”

“I got one,” I said. Both the Reverend and Linus looked at me in surprise. I shrugged, then said: “What was the name of the giant rose bush that Godzilla fought with?”

“Biollante,” they both said simultaneously; then Linus chimed in with: “The best special effects they save for the dumbest story line. It’s a damn shame.”

“Well, I tried.”

Linus reached over the seat and patted my shoulder. “It was a good question, though, Sam. Most people don’t know that any new Godzilla movies were made after Terror of Mecha-Godzilla . And I don’t count that big-budget abortion from ’98…although Jean Reno kicked ass in it.”

“Yeah, he’s great,” said the Reverend.

After that, the three of us fell silent for a few minutes. The rain was turning into serious sleet, and a few pebble-sized chunks of hail bounced off the windshield. I turned up the defrost and ran the wipers, turning the world outside into a liquid blur of shapeless colors.

“A fit night for neither man nor beast,” said Linus.

I turned around and grinned at him. “That’s a line from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer , right?”

Linus rolled his eyes and sighed. “We three are just a fount of useless information this evening.”

“No, I fixed up the VCR back at the shelter so this woman and her kids could watch Rudolph before we left.”

“That’s some truly unnerving syntax,” said the Reverend.

“I work hard at it.”

The Reverend poured Linus some hot coffee and gave him a sandwich, and while he ate I checked the time and saw it was about time to move onto the next pickup point. I put the van into gear and was just pulling away from the curb when a police cruiser rounded the corner doing about sixty, its visibar lights flashing but the siren turned off: silent approach. It sped past us, followed by an ambulance whose lights were flashing but whose siren was turned off, also.

“Okay, that’s interesting,” said the Reverend.

Both of the vehicles stopped at the mid-way point on the East Main Street Bridge. One of the police officers got out and looked over the side of the bridge.

Without being told to do it, I spun the wheel and headed in that direction. There’s an old fisherman’s shack on the banks of the Licking River below the bridge that some of the homeless folks in town use as a flop when the weather’s bad and they can’t make it to the shelter.

By the time we got to the bridge, two more squad cars had pulled up and I could see that there was already another ambulance and at least three other squad cars parked down near the river bank.

“They must’ve taken the access road,” said the Reverend, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t want to try and drive back up that thing tonight.” He threw open the door and climbed out. The police officer who was looking over the railing caught sight of him and turned around, his hand automatically resting on the butt of his gun, but then he saw who it was and relaxed. The Reverend went over and spoke to him for a few moments, the officer nodded his head, asked a question, and on hearing the Reverend’s answer turned his head slightly to the side and spoke into the radio communications microphone attached to his collar. The Reverend thanked him, and then came back to the van.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he climbed in.

“I don’t know. Looks like Joe was at the shack for a little while. He’s not around and they’re still looking for him. They’ve got Martha, though, and I guess she’s in bad shape. The paramedics had to sedate her. That ambulance down there is for her.”

“Then who’s this other one for?”

The Reverend ran a hand through his soaked hair. “Not just yet, Sam. Drive over to the other side of the bridge and pull over.”

Asking no more questions, I did as he asked, and saw there was an unmarked car idling by the curb, its cherry-light whirling on the dashboard. A beefy man was sitting inside, talking on the radio. When he saw the van pull over, he climbed out of the car, pulled up the collar on his coat, and ran over to the side door. It took Linus a moment to get it opened, but once he did the man climbed inside and shook the freezing rain from his hands. “I smell coffee. Why has none yet been offered to me?”

“And a good evening to you, too, Bill,” said the Reverend, unscrewing the top of a Thermos and pouring. Detective Bill Emerson took the cup in his thin, dainty, almost-feminine hands (he gets a lot of grief from the guys on the force about them), took a few tentative sips, said, “Starbucks charges you six bucks a shot for stuff this good,” then stared down into the dark, steamy liquid as if expecting to see some answer magically appear. “Okay, so Joe was at the shelter earlier and got upset and took off and you sent Martha after him, right?”

“Right.”

Emerson nodded his head, took another sip of the coffee, then looked at Linus. “Linus, I don’t suppose you’ve got any smokes on you, do you?” “Not tonight, I’m afraid.” “That’s all right. My wife’d kill me if I came home smelling of tobacco.” “How’s Martha?” asked the Reverend. “Quiet, now. They’ve got her in the ambulance.” “Can you tell me anything about what happened?” Emerson shook his head. “Not officially.” “Then off the record?”

Emerson looked up; his eyes were glassy and tired and haunted-looking. “Among other things—which I can’t tell you about, so don’t ask—we found a body down there. I don’t think it’s anyone you know.”

The Reverend tensed. “You don’t know that for certain.”

Emerson reached into his coat pocket and removed three Polaroids that he passed up front. The Reverend looked at all three of them, whispered, “Good God,” and passed them to me.

What happens now? I thought as I looked at them.

There’s an almost-joke that we use to settle the nerves of folks who are passing through, who maybe don’t know about or haven’t heard some of this city’s colorful history: This is Cedar Hill. Weird shit happens here. Get used to it.

Even by the standards of our usual weird shit, what I saw in those photographs was way the hell out there.

The guy had to have been almost seven feet tall. He was naked and pale and dead, but that wasn’t what caused me to gasp, no—he had only one eye socket, directly in the center of his forehead where two eyes struggled to stay in place. His face had no nose; instead, there was a proboscis-like appendage that looked like an uncircumcised penis growing from the center of his too-small forehead.

I was looking at photographs of a dead Cyclops.

What happens now?

I continued staring at them until Linus reached between the seats and snatched them out of my hand. No sooner had he done that and began looking at them than Emerson snatched them from him.

“That’s not fair— they got to see ‘em.”

“Have you seen Joe tonight?” asked Emerson.

“No.”

‘Can you offer me any information that might shed some light on what happened at the shelter earlier this evening?” “No.” “And is there any chance that you’re ever going to replace my wooden figure of Thalidomide Man that the arms fell off of?” “For five bucks, sure.” “I meant for free.”