“All right, Gut. You want to stay in there a few more days and get your head together, that’s fine.”
“Ain’t nothin’wrong with my head. I know it all sounds crazy, but it’s true.”
“Sure, Gut. Later.”
“And you best be careful, man. Don’t go messin’ with Natter and them Creekers, or else they’ll be doin’ the same job on you they did ta Scott-Boy. They’se be sacker-ficin’ you to that there demon.”
“I appreciate your concern, Gut, and you can be certain I’ll keep it in mind.” Jesus, just what I need, another whack, Phil thought. Aren’t there enough eightballs in the world?
Phil began to walk out, but before he made it to the hall, a single word sounded behind him:
“Skeet-inner.”
He stopped, stood a moment. The word nailed him in place. He walked back to Gut’s cell.
“What does that word mean?” he asked very slowly.
“That’s what they calls the demon,” Gut replied. “I thinks it’s sort of a nickname, ’cos it’s got another name, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Ona,” Gut said.
— | — | —
Twenty-Eight
Skeet-inner, Phil thought. Ona.
He drove the Malibu down the Route, the two words hanging like vapor in his mind. They wouldn’t go away.
A demon.
Phil didn’t believe in demons, but he definitely believed there were lots of people who did. The country was full of whacked-out cults that worshipped the devil—you read about them in the papers every day. And a lot of these cults incorporated drug-use in their rituals, and also sold drugs to finance their activities.
Before he’d left the station’s jailhouse, he’d asked Gut about the other words he’d heard. Mannona. Onamahn. Prey-bee. Where Sullivan had dismissed them as “Creeker talk,” Gut had indeed verified them as still more designations regarding the Creekers’ religion…
It could all be meaningless, but then again, everything Phil found out about Natter and his Creekers would lend a better understanding of them. And the more he understood them, the closer he could get.
Except when all my leads are either crazy, clamming up, or dead, he reminded himself. Starting from scratch would be a pain in the ass, but there was no other alternative. He’d have to go back to Sallee’s and try to cultivate more low-life, get back into the scene. Still too early, though, he realized when he looked at his watch. The denizens didn’t generally start coming in till midnight or so.
To kill time, he went back to his room and read more in the books he’d gotten from the library. One text did indeed mention a frequency among inbred communities to participate in non-Judeo-Christian systems of worship. This, of course, stood to reason: in their sheer isolation, such communities and settlements had no exposure to more popular religious beliefs. They existed and developed within their own spheres of influence; therefore, it made sense that their theological beliefs would develop on their own, too. Most of these religions, though, were nature-oriented, or revolved around self-made superstitions. Many actually were rooted in guilt-syndromes; in other words, the inbreds believed that the “gods,” through birth deformities, were punishing them for their sins. And those born non-defected were frequently given higher social status; sometimes they were even worshipped themselves as semi-gods, as proof of forgiveness. The book, however, made no mention specifically of demonological beliefs.
In time, Phil’s curiosities took him back to the more technical text, the one with photoplates. Again, his most immediate observation came when comparing the book’s most extreme examples of inbred defectivity to the most extreme examples he had seen himself among Natter’s Creekers. The enlarged heads (hydrocephalus), lengthened bone structures (endo-acromegaly), and cleft skulls (cranial bivalvism or “split-head syndrome”) were all well-known traits of congenital inbred birth defects, all caused by hypersecretions of pituitary growth hormones. Also common were crimson irises, additional or missing fingers and toes, even extra limbs (adulterated biamous appendagalus). But it was the extent of these extremes that struck Phil right off.
The textbook depictions were minor in comparison. He understood that the more actively inbred the community, the more grievous the defects. And this could only mean that Natter’s Creekers had been inbreeding for a very long time.
Next the text delved deeper into causal aspects of inbreeding. Initially, parental or sibling reproduction presented only one chance in about nine of producing a defected offspring. But it was exponential. After generations of incestuous reproduction, a community’s gene pool became so corrupted that normal births were rare. The text gave examples of several such communities which hadn’t known a normal birth in decades, yet—quite futilely—these same communities would inbreed even more actively on the false assumption that the more births they achieved, the greater the chances of a rare normal birth.
God, this stuff’s dense, he thought, reading on in the lamplight. Some of the words hurt his eyes just to look at.
Here was an oddity: homeoaxial transfective deflection—What a mouthful, Phil thought—a congenital syndrome where a person displayed horrendous defects while remaining possessed of absolutely normal reproductive genes. And here was another oddity, the kicker:
“Hierarchal savantism.” Phil had skimmed this description the other day, but now he read it carefully. One more commonality among inbreds. By some chromosomal fluke (which was termed homotopic genetic inversionism), some were born with grievous physical defects but normal if not brilliant minds, and these persons often became the community’s leaders…
Natter, Phil thought.
At midnight, he embarked for Sallee’s.
The notion of religion continued to peck at him. Were the Creekers really an inbred cult that worshipped a demon? And were they actually sacrificing people in some sense of appeasement, or in some plea for forgiveness? And if so:
Was Natter the “priest” of the “sect”?
Phil shivered. The entire idea shed new light on Natter’s possible motivations. Maybe he’s more than just a pimp and a drug lord, Phil considered. Maybe he’s also some crackpot cult governor urging his followers to commit murder…
He parked in the back of Sallee’s; the lot, as usual, was jammed. Concussive music hit him in the face the second he walked through the door. “Highway to Hell,” the speakers thundered. Cigarette smoke burned his eyes; the strobe lights flashed. Up on stage an ungainly blonde scarred by tattoos was demonstrating the dexterity of her pectorals, flexing them to the beat, which made her breasts jump up and down as if jerked by unseen strings. Then she flung herself to the top of the brass stage-pole and spiraled all the way down, a human corkscrew.
Don’t worry, honey, you’ll make the Olympics next time. Phil pulled up a stool, and in less than a second a draft was placed before him. “Ya never get here early enough,” the keep complained.
“Don’t tell me, I missed Sting whipping Ric Flair’s ass.”
“Ain’t no way in hell the Stinger’d whup the Nature Boy. To be the man—”
“I know…you gotta beat the man.”
“You’re catchin’ on,” the keep smiled. “But you did miss Ravishing Rick Rude winning back his U.S. title from that putz Ricky the Dragon Steamboat.”
“Them’s the breaks. Seen Paul or Eagle?” he asked to gauge a reaction.
“Nope, not tonight,” the keep replied immediately. He obviously knew nothing. “Can I interest you in a hot dog?”
“Maybe later.” Phil shook his head to himself, then turned when the crowd’s applause grew riotous. The tattooed blonde had stepped down, and in her place stepped Vicki.