Fantastic Metropolis

Sometimes it’s tears in a shopping mall. Sometimes it’s solemn watching while others play. Sometimes it’s calling for a runaway puppy.

This time it’s the skitter of gravel under bicycle wheels, long after dark.

This time.

 

US 30 unrolled under their wheels like a red carpet to Nebraska, bleached gray by the van’s headlamps. Heavy clouds like boulders in the sky knocked together and rolled apart in their eastbound avalanche. Each glimpse of the huge round moon transformed the highway into a twisted silver spine. Headhigh corn lined the road either side, swaying in the wind like breathing walls in a morphine nightmare.

Frankie slouched down in the passenger seat and slicked his tangled hair back with the sweat from his palms. His imagination was getting away with him again.

“Iowa,” he said, a little too loud. “Breadbasket to the world. God’s country. Buckle on the Bible Belt. Land of cornfed Republicans.”

“Shut up,” Decker said flatly. He squinted at the road through the greasy smoke of the Pall Mall that dangled from his lower lip. Decker didn’t have any imagination at all. Sometimes Frankie admired him for that. “We’re hittin Carroll in about five minutes. Get in back an sit on the littlefuckers.”

Decker always called them that. Littlefuckers, one word. Frankie figured it was the only word over three syllables Decker knew. Frankie climbed between the seats and crawled back on all fours, his long skinny limbs moving jerkily, gracelessly, like the legs of a half-crushed spider.

The littlefuckers looked at him with big eyes round as the moon tonight, red at the rims and trailing fat tears down over their cheeks onto the wide grey duct tape that covered their mouths. Two of them tonight, a sweet haul, boys maybe nine and maybe six, blonde, big dark eyes and round little butts.

Sweet.

Scared shitless.

Nobody could scare a littlefucker like Frankie.

They’d spotted them just across the Raccoon River between Jefferson and Scranton, riding double on a rusty Schwinn banana-seat. Decker’s blank expression hadn’t changed a bit as he sideswiped them with just the right fishtail to slap their front wheel and send them down. Decker was a real artist with the van.

He’d had a lot of practice.

Then came Frankie’s turn, to jump out the door and race back along the road—“Jesus, kid! You all right?” It went just like clockwork, like it always did, Frankie helping them up and calming them down while Decker came up behind with the big roll of duct tape.

“What’s your name, kid?” Frankie always liked to know their names. Made it more personal, somehow. Better.

“Bobby…” the older one had said. “Bobby Patch.” The little one hadn’t said anything, just looked at him with those big sweet eyes, looked at him like he already knew who Frankie was and what he was going to do. Gave Frankie a little chill, even though it was just that imagination of his. “This is my brother Brian—”

Then Decker was there with the tape. Decker was stronger than hell, did five years at Stateville lifting weights, even though he was a little guy he could turn Frankie into a pretzel if he wanted. The littlefuckers never had a chance. Tape around the wrists and ankles, first, always first, before the tape on the mouth—Frankie’s next-to-favorite part was when they start to scream and cry, gave him that warm feeling down below—then into the van, bike too, and away for the Nebraska border and the little airfield off in the corn near Kennard.

They had a good thing going, Frankie and Decker. Drive around the Midwest, have a little fun, drop off the littlefuckers and collect their cash. “Life’s a pleasure when you like your work,” Frankie’d say every once in a while. Sometimes Frankie liked to imagine what happened to the littlefuckers after they dropped them off; he didn’t know for sure. Maybe they got sold to rich bastards, Arabs or something. Maybe they went down to Mexico and made movies, maybe even snuff flicks.

He used to bug Decker, when they’d go through a big city, Des Moines or Minneapolis or something, to hit the backrooms of some of the cumshops, see if any of the movies had faces they recognized. Decker’d never do it, said the cops always watched those places, and once he’d caught Frankie coming out of one and dragged him into an alley and beat the shit out of him. Frankie hadn’t brought it up again.

These days Decker just drove the van, and Frankie’s job was to keep the littlefuckers from banging on the walls or something when they went through towns. He was good at it. He scared the piss out of them. Stephen King couldn’t scare littlefuckers better than Frankie.

Frankie worked his mouth as he spiderwalked toward the Patch kids, getting up a good load of frothy spit. “You been bad,” he gurgled, right up in Bobby’s face. He pushed a little of the foam onto his lips with his tongue and twitched his head like a rabid dog. “You been BAAAAAAD.”

He laughed softly, a moist gargling chuckle and let a little of his drool dribble down onto Bobby’s cheek. They both stared at him like rabbits caught in headlights. Get ‘em scared enough, they can’t even think about moving, let alone making noise.

The van slowed and yellow streetlight swept the interior. Frankie made like he was going to turn away, then jumped back at them like a cat pouncing on a wounded squirrel. He ran his hands over them, light brushing on their wet cheeks, a sudden pinch on a tiny nipple, a quick twist of his hand on the zipper of their dirty Levi’s. He bugged his eyes and cocked his head over sideways, froth sliding out the corner of his mouth. “I gotcha,” he slavered. Bobby closed his eyes and turned his screwed-up face away, but the little one, Brian, just stared. Frozen. “Gotcha gotcha GOTCHA!”

“Shut up for Christ’s sake.” Decker glared at him in the rearview. “We’re comin on a red light and there’s cars around.”

Frankie didn’t answer. He knew better than to mess with Decker. He contented himself with drooling and pinching their little noses shut to watch their faces turn colors and their eyes roll up. The big one, Bobby, had shit his pants. Frankie could smell it as he licked their tears off his fingers.

He was getting hard already.

It seemed like forever till the van pulled out of Carroll back into the warm welcoming darkness of the Iowa cornfields. Frankie’s breath was coming heavy. It was time for the next part. The best part, for him. He liked to talk with them.

“Who’s gonna help you now?” Frankie used that hoarse whisper, that scary voice, as he whipped the duct tape off their mouths. He knew it was scary, that and his twisty jerking movement and the twitch of his head, the roll of his eyes. Sometimes he got a little scared himself, just imagining what the littlefuckers must be thinking. Sometimes he had dreams where it was him taped to the van, even though it was him doing the scaring, too.

Sure, it was an act, it was all an act, but it was a scary act.

“What’re you gonna do with us?” The big one, Bobby, sounded real calm for a kid whose Levis were full of his own shit. Brian just stared, greasy duct tape stickum around his lips like a gray clown mouth.

“Do with you?” Frankie rasped like he hadn’t really thought about it. “Guess maybe I’ll just eat you up!” Decker let out a dry chuckle up front. Sometimes Decker was pretty cool.

Bobby nodded solemnly, like that was the answer he was expecting. Frankie did a little caper around the back of the van, on all fours like a demented monkey. “Never gonna see your momma again,” he sang. “Never gonna see your dad. Never see your mom again cause you… been… BAAAAD!”

“My momma’s dead.”

Frankie gave him a sharp look—sometimes kids tell you stupid lies on purpose, to make you look stupid if you fall for them. The kid looked serious enough right now, though, lips trembling and tears welling.

This was too good!

“Yeah, I know. I killed her. I took her away so’s I could eat her! You know who I am, kid? I’m the Boogieman!” he roared, flapping his arms at them and spraying them with spit.

The kids exchanged a solemn look.

“You don’t believe in the Boogieman?” Frankie let some more froth drool down his chin. “That’s why I gotcha. I’d never a caught you if you’da believed in me! But now it’s too late!”

Little Brian spoke for the first time. He had a clear, pure voice, like one of those kids that sing on T.V. “I believe in the Boogerman,” he said. “But he don’t look like you.”

Decker let out a guffaw. Sometimes the strangest shit struck him funny.

Bobby said, “Aren’t you afraid, Mister? Aren’t you afraid of Jesus, what he’s gonna do?”

“Jesus won’t do shit.” Frankie knew there wasn’t any Jesus. He knew it ever since Reverend James took him back in the dark chapel after Youth Group one day and dropped his pants. “Jesus told me to take you, cause you been bad! If Jesus came here I’d kill him like I killed your momma! Jesus is scared of me! What do you think about that?”

The kids gave each other another look. Little Brian fixed him with those big round eyes and whispered, “_I know something scarier than you._”

The littlefuckers had no imagination, that was the problem. He was gonna have to prove how scary he was. At the same time, he felt a funny knot tying itself up below his ribs. He suddenly jumped at Bobby and wrapped his little head with his hands. “That’s it, you littlefucker. If you ain’t scared of me, I gotta eat you first!”

Bobby’s trembling went up Frankie’s arms like an electric shock. He was scared! But he just said, “Just don’t hurt Brian, okay?” in this little whiny voice. “If I let you eat me, will you let him go?”

Frankie chuckled deep in his throat. “Gonna eat you both!”

“Please, Mister? Please don’t hurt my little brother?”

The knot in his stomach started to loosen. He was getting a handle on this, now. But something about these two had him a little weirded. He wanted to talk to Decker about it, if he could only think of some way to ask him that wouldn’t sound pussy.

He was still trying to think up the right words when Decker said abruptly, “I got a rock. There’s a rest area comin up. We’re pullin in.”

“Decker–”

“Shut up. One pays the same as two. I’ll take the big one, he’ll last longer.”

“I don’t know, Deck…”

“What’re you, jealous? Don’t worry, you’ll get yours.” Decker whipped the wheel over, hand-over-hand, and the van squealed up the ramp to the rest area.

The rest area squatted on top of a little rise, low sloped roof like a hardback book opened face down on a table. A single high-intensity lamp on a splintery wooden pole cast a pool of harsh white glare on the empty asphalt parking lot. Decker parked the van across a couple of the spaces marked in faded paint, rather than pulling in against the curb—Decker was like that, always thinking, always taking care of the little things. This way if someone drove up while they were here, state cop or something, they could drive the van off without doing any backing and turning.

That was the kind of thinking that could save their lives someday.

Decker killed the engine and hopped out, around the van, and threw open the rear doors. His eyes glittered even though he was backlit by the parking lot lamp. Without a word he reached in and dragged Bobby out by the arm. Bobby didn’t cry out or struggle, and Brian just watched.

Decker said, “Jesus Christ, what’s the smell?”

Frankie giggled, a little nervously. He could see the bulge in Decker’s pants; Decker had a little dick, but Frankie knew it got hard as a railroad spike and sometimes Decker didn’t care what he fucked. “He shit his pants.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Bobby asked in that tiny thin voice.

Decker’s face screwed up in disgust. “Nothing with you, you filthy little prick,” he said, and threw the littlefucker down across the asphalt. Bobby still didn’t cry out, even as the gravel skinned his elbows and face as he skidded toward the curb. “Don’t–” his whispery voice caught as quiet tears started, “please don’t hurt my brother…”

Decker looked at Brian, sizing him up. Pretty small—it was a question of whether he could live long enough to give Decker real satisfaction. The wind that raked the cornfields and swirled in the back of the van was turning chill; Frankie rubbed his hands together. After so long partnering, Frankie could practically read Decker’s mind; if the little one died too quick he knew damn well who it was would end up bent over the rear gate of the van with his pants around his ankles.

“I could clean him up,” Frankie offered hopefully. “Honest, Deck, I could take the big one in the can and clean him up and I wouldn’t even really touch him or anything.”

“Please,” Bobby whispered, barely audible in the wind, “I’ll do anything you want. Just leave Brian alone.”

Decker turned his head and spat. “Fuckit. I’m sick of hearing that.” He reached in and grabbed Brian and hauled him out. “Put shitboy back in the van and watch for cars. Maybe I’ll be careful enough that you’ll get a turn.” He hefted the littlefucker and looked into those wide staring eyes. He grinned. “And maybe I won’t.”

Little Brian didn’t say a word, didn’t even wriggle as Decker tucked him up under one thick arm and walked into the building.

Frankie stood there for a minute, listening to the wind and watching the waves of corn break like grey water around the low island of the rest area. The corn was more than headhigh. He remembered stories his dad told him, how you could get lost in a cornfield at night in these days of machine-sown fields, never knowing if you were heading toward the edge or into the middle, how you could wander in circles for days if you couldn’t find something, a tree or one of those steel power-towers, to walk toward.

He was cold, all of a sudden, and something… something was wrong, something about these two littlefuckers tickled at the back of his mind, reminded him of something. A story? An old movie?

Something.

He bent down to pick up Bobby. Something was weird, all right. He could smell it but he couldn’t quite grab hold. He lifted the kid and set him inside the van and for a moment neither one of them moved, just stared at each other.

He caught it, the strangeness: Bobby wasn’t scared any more.

Well, I can fix that, Frankie thought. Nobody scares ‘em like me. But somehow he couldn’t seem to get started, couldn’t seem to think, couldn’t do nothing but listen to the pounding in his ears.

Bobby said, “What’s he doing to Brian? Is he hurting him?”

Now’s the time, Frankie thought, I’ll really get him. Now was the time to start gibbering and capering and telling the littlefucker how his brother was getting eaten and he was next, but all he did was stand there like a fieldmouse watching a snake and said, “Yes.”

Bobby smiled.

He leaned back against the carpeted wall, eyelids drooping with something that looked like pleasure. A freezing hand reached into Frankie’s guts and grabbed on. Bobby said dreamily, “Please please please, don’t hurt my little brother…”

He fixed Frankie with that half-lidded stare and grinned like a hungry wolf. “Whatever you do, don’t mess with that Brian Patch.”

Frankie’s guts, his knees, everything inside him turned to icewater. He started to back away, he wanted to turn and run, run from the terrible hunger in Bobby’s eyes. His feet tangled and he fell hard on the asphalt. He couldn’t get his breath. Bobby watched him, that same grin twisting his face. Frankie struggled up to his hands and knees.

“Decker!” he tried to shout, but the word came out a strangled squeak. It’s that imagination of mine, he told himself. Get a grip. Don’t let that imagination run away with you. He pushed himself up to his trembling knees.

Don’t let him get to you. He’s just trying to scare you. I’m too big to be scared like a little kid, I’m too big…

“DECKER!” The crash of his shout seemed to still the wind. He knelt an instant in shocked silence, then Decker replied.

With a scream.

A raw, jagged, throat-ripping shriek stabbed Frankie’s head like a knifeblade through his eardrums. And before he knew it he was stumbling toward the building’s door. He didn’t want to go in there, Christ he didn’t, Christ Jesus he knew he shouldn’t see what was inside. Run! he told his body, Please run away but his legs carried him staggering across the parking lot and through the door, over the tile and into the bathroom.

He stopped when he found them. He couldn’t make sense of what he saw. It was only a pattern of color and form, like one of those fucked-up head videos—except for the smell, the slaughterhouse reek: blood and vomit and shit.

“Please–” Decker whispered. “For God’s sake—please–”

Decker lay on his back on the floor, his face grey as a dirty rag, lips slack, eyes drifting in and out of focus. His arms twitched helplessly at his sides. An occasional spasm kicked through his legs. Brian knelt over him, his little face pressed down into Decker’s stomach, like he was going down on him but he wasn’t—he wasn’t, he couldn’t be—because–
Because there wasn’t anything there, anything except blood and ripped flesh and squirming purple intestine spread across the floor. Decker’s stomach, his whole body from the ragged hole of his crotch to his wetly pulsing heart, lay wide open and steaming and little Brian pressed his face deeper and deeper into it.

Chewing.

Frankie moaned, hours-old Big Mac working back up his throat. Brian heard him and lifted his sweet little angelic face. Blood ran down his cheeks in place of tears; a huge limp chunk of Decker’s liver filled his lips. He tossed his head like a lizard swallowing a mouse and the chunk slid down his little throat.

He smiled up at Frankie, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “I believe in the Boogerman,” he said. “But he don’t look like you.”

Frankie stepped backward, gagging. He barely noticed when his bowels let go and squirted shit down both legs of his jeans. Brian stood up and started toward him and Frankie turned and ran. He crashed through the rest stop’s door and sprinted blindly.

The corn, he thought. Get into the corn. He’ll never find me.

He raced down the slope toward the field. Bobby’s laughter rang in the van behind him. He’s just a little kid! He’s not a monster, I’m the monster, there aren’t any monsters, he’s just a little kid!

He was still just a little kid. Even with Decker’s liver in his mouth.

Frankie hit the edge of the cornfield and pounded on, stalks whipping his face. He heard sobbing and when he had to gasp for air he knew it was his own. He ran and ran until the scraping rasp of his breath burned his lungs and ripped black splotches in his eyes. The corn enfolded him like his mother’s loving arms, nothing around but corn, a foot higher than his head.

He could see nothing but corn, and nothing but corn could see him.

He threw himself down, gasping for air, watering the corn with his tears. Oh thank God I made it. I made it. Thank you God. Thank you, Jesus, I’ll go straight, I swear, I’ll go back to church. I’ll never hurt anybody again as long as I live. Thank you, God.

Then he felt hot breath that reeked of copper on his neck and a childish voice whispered in his ear, “I know something scarier than you.”

 

This time it was the skitter of gravel under bicycle wheels, long after dark.

This time.

Sometimes it’s tears in a shopping mall. Sometimes it’s solemn watching while others play. Sometimes it’s calling for a runaway puppy.

Sometimes.

Not often enough.