Christopher Buehlman - The Lesser Dead

I put the cop’s hat under my jacket.

“We were playing at jacks,” he said, and a little ginger boy held up a red rubber ball. I smiled. Then I saw what they were using as jacks and I stopped smiling.

“Look,” I said, “I need one of you to come back home with me. Would you like to see where I live?”

“Where do you live?” Peter said, the look on his face suggesting this had best not be boring. I had the idea they were still trying to work out if I was a kid like them, thus worth associating with, or a square like Cvetko, who they pretty much ignored. Cvetko was hunkered down next to me, looking like a teacher in his suit, looking like someone to be disobeyed, mocked, run in circles around.

“Someplace cool,” I said. “But first I got a better idea.”

“What, what?” said the ginger boy.

“What?” said the little dark-haired girl, almost too softly to hear.

“Yes, what?” Cvetko said, cocking an eyebrow at me.

The smaller little blond boy, who had ignored everything else as he tried to bend a penny with a pair of pliers, now looked up.

“Let’s go see a movie!”

Clearly Cvetko didn’t want to go see a movie. Neither did I, if the truth be told, but I needed time to think.

Want to know what they were using as jacks? A couple of jacks, sure. But also bullets, six of them.

And teeth.

I knew as soon as the epic symphony music banged up and the little ones all jumped that Star Wars was the right movie to keep them still for at least half an hour while Cvetko and I thought about what to do with them. The Astor Plaza Theater in Times Square was the last one in Manhattan still showing Star Wars , and only for late-night screenings. Peter had wanted to go see another movie, A Hard Knight’s Night , because there was a knight on the poster and he liked knights, but that was at another kind of theater altogether, the kind where middle-aged guys sat by themselves in raincoats.

Thank God for Star Wars . What else were we going to watch, The Bad News Bears Go to Japan ? Sure it had kids in it, but it sucked, and sucked big. Corvette Summer ? They weren’t going to sit still for that. Not a bad film for what it was, though. I had jerked off at least twice about Annie Potts. I’d love to meet Annie Potts. Still, you almost felt bad for Mark Hamill trying to be somebody besides Luke Skywalker. Fucking Star Wars .

Funny the power of that film—everybody clapped when it started, they often clapped. The little ones were staring at it openmouthed, whispering among themselves, pointing. At one point during the fight on the Death Star, the littlest one crawled into Cvetko’s lap and hugged his neck like he was Grandpa, which seemed to really embarrass him, so the girl pulled the kid off. Point is, they loved it. Hell, I loved it. I had seen it nine times already and I never got tired of it.

I was so into it that I almost felt bothered by Cvetko asking me, “What do you think our next step is?” I was holding a bag of popcorn just for appearances, no butter, it’s not really butter anyway and it smells like shit. Darth Vader was holding up the rebel guy by the neck, smoke everywhere, and Princess Leia was about to get caught.

“I dunno,” I said.

He went quiet then, thinking, didn’t say anything else until the stormtroopers stopped the speeder with Obi-Wan and Luke.

He said, “Let’s take them back home. All of them.”

A guy behind us shushed him, and I did something just to show off—I turned around and said, “Move along,” charming the guy. Not a second later, Obi-Wan charmed the stormtrooper, saying “Move along,” and the stormtrooper said it back twice, Move along, move along . The kids loved this! The guy I charmed stumbled all over everybody’s feet moving along like I told him to, I don’t know where to. His woman friend said his name after him.

“Yeah,” I said. “Home. But after the movie.”

Turns out we didn’t go home right away.

When the movie was done they were hungry, really hungry, despite having fed so recently.

I guessed I was, too.

And I knew just the place.

I hailed a cab.

Poor Mrs. Baker.

Can you imagine? There you are, suffering insomnia or whatever, three pillows behind you, reading The Thorn Birds with a penlight while your man snores beery snores and then you look up and I’m walking up on your bed as quiet as death by carbon monoxide, all shiny-eyed with six shiny-eyed little children behind me.

She jumped and went to shout, her arm knocking over the lamp, but I stuck my hand in her mouth and killed the shout and the red-haired boy caught the lamp. Fast little thing, they all were. Mr. Baker made that can’t-breathe, snoring-gag sound drunk sleepers make and lifted his head, but no sooner had he done that than the Indian boy, Peter, and two others were on him, Peter lying across his nose and mouth and hugging his head, all but smothering him while the others latched on to his neck and wrists. The quiet little girl had gone into the other bedroom to tap the boy. I heard a brief struggle and then soothing words from Cvetko. I charmed Mrs. Baker and then Mr. Baker and they settled back, let us feed. I could hear Gonzalo in the other room, moving back and forth on his wooden bar.

Peter stopped drinking first, looked for a second like he was going to retch, but shook it off. The others kept going, hunched like nursing piglets.

“Okay,” I said. The Indian boy stopped, looked up smiling, bloody.

“Stop now,” I said, and all but the redhead stopped.

The red-haired boy wasn’t about to stop; he was gorging himself on Mrs. Baker so fast I was getting worried about her.

“C’mon,” I said. “Enough’s enough. Save some for the fishes.”

Mrs. Baker started breathing hard, trying feebly to push him away, aware even in her charmed state that she was in danger.

“Knock it off ,” I said, pinching ginger’s nose and pulling him off her neck. I put the dish towel I had in my back pocket on the neck and put her hand on it, said, “Press that.” She did. But ginger was fuming at me. He slapped me. Not hard. Before I could slap him back, Peter lunged and poked the kid in the eye with his finger. Hard.

“OW!”

“Don’t hit our friend,” Peter said.

The ginger looked even angrier for a second, his eye tearing up, then Peter said, “Caught a fart in your eye, didn’t you? Didn’t you just?” The kind of thing that’s only funny to kids, but boy was it funny to Peter and carrot-top. Whose name was really Sammy. I learned all their names that night. Sammy was British, too. The boys giggled.

In the other room I heard Cvetko saying, “Good girl. You took just enough. Now let him sleep.”

I heard the Baker kid groan.

I realized I hadn’t even fed yet, but I dared not; they really chewed on the Bakers good.

Whatever was up with these kids, they were ravenous.

I had my first moment of doubt, wondering if maybe Margaret had the right idea.

Then I heard the girl in the living room.

“Pretty bird,” she said softly.

“Pretty bird,” Gonzalo agreed. “ Happy Days , time for Happy Days .”

Then he made the sound of a doorbell.

All the kids went to him now. It was hard getting them away from the gray bastard. Gary Combs had been right; they did like his bird.

“So what are your names?” Margaret said. She had them lined up on the platform at the deserted 18th Street station. A jungle of graffiti stood behind her on the tiles; vines of it climbed up the posts. All of us were there, except Sandy. Even the Latins. Even Old Boy.