Christopher Buehlman - The Lesser Dead

Baldy’s dead hand was waving in the air, like Help me I’m headless , but everybody was more interested in the wall. Like we knew it was significant. Billy stepped forward, took the bloody shovel from Margaret, started scraping mold away.

THEappeared.

He went to the right of that.

C

“Cops!” the normally almost catatonic Sandy yelled, like she was playing Wheel of Fortune . Billy kept scraping. I stole a glance at Cvetko, saw his wheels turning.

CHILD

Billy stopped.

“Keep going,” Luna said.

He did.

CHILDREN

“Trust the Children,” Billy said. “I think they wrote that they own selves.”

Most of them laughed. Not Cvetko. And not Margaret.

Billy rested on his shovel.

“Are ye an idiot?” Margaret said.

Sounded like eedjeet .

She took the shovel from Billy and walked to the left of the word TRUST. Scraped. The next word appeared and the whole message stood before us.

DON’T TRUST THE CHILDREN

Everyone gasped in chorus. Cvetko, too.

Then he said something I didn’t understand.

It sounded like Many, many tickle a parson .

But it wasn’t in English.

“I’m sick of shit I don’t understand,” I said, and walked away.

I spent a long time packing my suitcase; it was one of those 1940s ones with the delicate little latches, but real solid otherwise. Nothing a gorilla could jump up and down on, but classy, kind of an orangey color between a brick and a pumpkin, not that that’s important, I just like that color. I stuffed it as full as I could, even sat on it to press it down. I had no idea where I was going to end up, but doubted anybody sold nice vests and coats out in dog-on-a-trunk land with corn and Hee Haw and guys that stuck a piece of grass in their mouth while they talked to you. Margaret, Cvetko, and Billy had been talking about who wrote DON’T TRUST THE CHILDREN, but the crux of it was that Margaret was going to kill them tomorrow night, even though none of them could quite convince themselves the wall was talking about these children. That was like twenty years’ worth of mold we scraped off. Still, it seemed to superstitious Margaret like a sign, and she was all Off with their heads! Old Boy and Chinchilla would come with her, and she even had Billy halfway convinced. Cvetko wasn’t saying much about it, taking it all in and pondering. I just wanted to leave. The first time I walked out, though, Margaret stopped me, told me she wanted me to go tell Ruth what was up and that she should keep them there.

I knew better than to buck a direct order, but I must have looked like I just got told to shovel out a Dumpster full of horse apples, because Cvetko spoke up and volunteered to go instead of me. I could have kissed him. Actually I did kiss him, right on the forehead, because I realized it might be my last chance. I gave him a look that I hoped let him know this was it. This was good-bye. I think he already knew. He patted my shoulder and gave my arm a hard squeeze. Margaret waved me off and I went to pack. There was no rule against anybody leaving, but I didn’t want to risk pissing her off so I didn’t announce my plans. I figured I’d send Cvets a postcard at his dummy address once I got to Peoria or wherever.

I had it all planned out, as far as a guy like me plans anything. I would charm somebody with a car, get them to drive me out of the city, ditch them, get a hotel. Maybe Pennsylvania. I heard it was pretty. I could come back to the city or find another city, maybe Philly, when I ran out of dough. Anyway, I just couldn’t take any more peeling. Biting people was one thing, but I was going to feel the knife going through that kid’s neck bone for the rest of my nights. I knew I had to get a few hours’ sleep, it was already like ten A.M., but I had no idea how I was going to be able to stop thinking about it. Turns out it wasn’t so hard after all. I was exhausted. Only I didn’t get to sleep too long.

Cvetko came back with the news about three P.M.: Ruth was gone. The kids were gone. The platform at the 18th Street station was awash in vampire blood. Margaret woke the rest of us up. She’s not a gentle waker-upper, either; she banged on my fridge door with her sandal and said, “Rise and shine.” When I sat up, she cut her eyes to my suitcase and said, “Where d’ya think you’re goin’?” Before I could answer, and I didn’t really have an answer, she said, “I’ll tell you where. You’re comin’ with us to find those little monsters and shorten ’em all a head.”

Gonzalo flapped his wings real big; I don’t think he liked Margaret. I don’t think he liked living underground. I caught him pulling feathers out of his own chest; he was working on a little bald spot there.

“I can’t, Margaret. I just can’t.”

That was a mistake, but what do you want, I was sleepy. Next thing I knew she had me by both ears like she really wouldn’t mind ripping them off. “You can and you will. You’re the one brought those false, murderin’ little devils among us, and you’ll help us sort ’em out. Then you can go wherever you care to go, if you think anyone else’ll have you.”

She kicked my suitcase over, making Gonzalo squawk, and left. And then she came back, still pissed. “I’ve known you forty years now, Joseph Peacock, and I’ll tell you somethin’ about yourself, whether you want to hear it or not. You start real strong but you finish like a runt. You’re forever getting yourself into messes you haven’t got the britches to get yourself out of, or else letting people walk on you. That little girlie that left you cold for bein’ a Jew-boy? I’d have peeled her.”

“But you said…”

“The devil with what I said. Do you think anything in this world would have tasted as good as her princess blood pourin’ hot down your throat? No matter who her fuckin’ daddy was? But you didn’t have the stones for it. And that boy, Freddie.”

“I know,” I said.

“You were stupid enough to tell him what you were, so what did he do?”

“He didn’t believe me.”

“Tried to let the blind up on you, put sunshine to you. Damn near did it, too, and that would have been the end of you.”

I looked at the scar on my elbow.

“He just didn’t believe. He wanted to see what would happen.”

“He saw, all right. Did you ever wonder what happened to him?”

“No. I never went around him anymore.”

“Well, I went around him. I did him. I drank him dead on a tugboat while he begged me not to and I threw what was left of him in the East River.”

I just blinked at her.

She smiled an ugly smile.

“Laws are for the stupid. That’s what I learned all them years ago, swimmin’ as hard as I could and still sinkin’. I never told you this, but there was just a little part of me that admired what you did to me, putting that necklace on me. Not at first, of course, I was for killin’ you, and I did. But later, on thinkin’ about it, I understood it better. Oh, it was a wretched bit of business, a spoiled child’s petty revenge. But here’s the thing. You wanted me out of the house and you got me out because you were willing to get dirty to do it. And that’s how the world is.”

“I’m sorry for what I did, though. I was wrong.”

She slapped me.

She actually slapped me.

“No, you weren’t. You were God’s instrument. I failed at everything but this. You made me this.” She squatted down close to me now, said the next bit practically into my ear.

“Now, I don’t know if you’ve worked this out in your fond brain or not, but them children are no children, so don’t you be squeamish about hurtin’ ’em. They want what we have. This place. And they mean to take it. They fooled us all because they were willin’ to get dirty, and if we don’t get dirtier, they’ll kill us. All of us.”