“Son of a bitch,” I mumble.
He doesn’t smile.
“I warned you, D,” he says. His voice is the sliding of a tomb door. The crush of a gravel ton as it grinds your bones. “Told you never to come back here. This is no place for you. Never has been.”
“I’m looking for a girl.”
Carolyn’s father shifts his weight, sighs. Someone brings him a chair. He wipes the seat with a handkerchief from his breast pocket and sits down in front of me. Leans in real close.
“Carolyn’s gone, you poor bastard,” he says.
“Not her,” I tell him. “Dorothy McIntyre. Her mother hired me.”
He looks at me like I’m speaking some language he’s never heard.
“She wants her runaway daughter back,” I say. “Sound familiar?”
He glances at the gloved thug. I take a couple more shots to the jaw before the bruiser backs away. Carolyn’s dad leans in close again.
“Do you know who I work for?” he asks. “Do you even begin to understand my business?”
“Flesh trade,” I say.
He smiles. It’s a terrible, gargoyle smile. Unnnaturally white teeth. He even laughs. Turns to his thugs, who chuckle. I have no idea what’s so funny.
“The flesh trade,” he repeats my words. “There is that. But there is so much more. The flesh is only the beginning, boy. I work for The Skinless Ones. We all must serve somebody, so I serve them. The flesh is weak, but limited. There are so many other ways to suffer. So many alternatives to blood and bone. I think you came back here because you want to discover these things for yourself.”
I shake my head, wince at the pain it causes.
“I only want the girl. The mother is well-off. I can arrange a ransom.”
“It’s too late for that, D.” He turns around in the chair and motions to one of his goons. Someone brings him a small box of dark mahogany with an emerald clasp. He settles it on his knees. Rings glitter on his big fingers.
“You displeased me when you stole my daughter,” he says. “You ruined her. Gave her an illegimate child. You took what was mine. I should have killed you then. But you reminded me of myself…when I was young and stupid. So I gave you a warning instead. Now you leave me no choice.”
I flex my calf and feel the knife buried deep in my boot. I have no chance of reaching it. Not with my hands chained behind the chair.
“Unlock these chains,” I ask him. “Give me a fighting chance.”
Carolyn’s dad laughs again. His fingers run across the clasp of the box. He opens the lid, stands, and turns it upside down. A dozen or so black worms fall across my head, shoulders, and laps. Cold and slimy, bristling with short black hairs.
“These are the Worms That Feed On Dreams,” he says. “They will feed until there’s nothing left of you but an empty shell.”
“I loved her.” I tell him. “Why did you have to kill her?”
“She was worthless. She disobeyed me. So I gave her to my masters. I’ll do the same with you, once you’re properly hollowed out.”
“What about my baby? Your own grandson…”
“I am not entirely without mercy. I pitied Carolyn’s little bastard,” he says. “It’s out there somewhere. On the streets.”
I scream long and hard as the worms become tentacles invading my mouth and nostrils. But worse than that, they send fire coursing through my brain, filling my skull with flame. I’m twitching and straining, but the chains hold me tight.
The worms strip away my memories one by one: my mother, who died when I was a boy. I’ll never know her face again. My time in the alleys of the city…the gangs, the drugs, the fights…all gone. Carolyn…no, that’s the memory I can’t bear to lose. It will kill me as surely as a shot to the head.
I feel them tearing at it now…what was her name?
Some kind of commotion begins around me. A rush of blurred images. Something quicker than the eye moves between the thugs. Red fountains spray across the concrete floor, across my face. Something rips the worms away from my head, one by one, tossing them into the shadows. I realize then that my screaming has stopped.
For a moment I black out, clinging to the memory of Carolyn’s face.
What color were her eyes?
Then I’m back in the real world, and someone is unlocking the chains on my wrists. Something snuffles and snorts and chews nearby, digging into the spilled guts of the big bruiser. He lies on the concrete, body split apart like an overripe melon. What is the thing devouring him? It’s like a canine, but more like a spider. Its lucent skin steams and smokes. Bloody light spills from the eight eyes set about its head, most of which is a fanged snout. It squats and feeds, suckles on the goon’s viscera, then moves quick as lightning to the next body and continues its feast.
The chains fall away. I hear the squealing of tires and the roaring of an engine. The White Limousine races away, rear fender striking sparks as it leaves the scene of carnage.
A lean figure stands before me now, dark face staring from beneath a mildewed hat. Next to her a black suitcase sits open and empty. A strange animal musk fills my nostrils.
“Do you know where you’re going?” she rasps at me. When I don’t respond, she turns and whistles. The smoking dog-spider-thing scampers into the big suitcase, licking its chops. The old woman leans over and closes it tight. She clicks it shut and turns to face me.
“What is that thing?” I ask, rubbing my wrists and wishing for a shot of Old Kentucky.
The old woman glances at the black suitcase.
“My son,” she says.
I try to stand but fall to the cold floor instead.
What was her name?
Carolyn? Dorothy?
Her eyes were…
“Do you know where you’re going?” asks the old woman.
“He works for the Skinless Ones…” I mumble. “He gave her to them…”
The lights dim. The wet concrete becomes a comfy pillow.
“I know,” says the old woman.
She touches my cheek with gentle fingers.
And I’m out again.
I wake up fully clothed. My shirt is torn, stained with blood and grime. My face is swollen, my head ringing. My tongue probes a hole in my gums where an incisor used to be. I’m a mass of aching flesh and bones. Somehow I’m alive.
Flickering firelight warms my shivering body. I’m lying in an alley somewhere on the edge of town. The woman with the black suitcase sits on the other side of the fire. Mounds of trash and rubble form a crude stockade about us. Rain drizzles across a latex tarp suspended above the flames, drips through tiny holes to sizzle on the embers.
My companion offers me a bottle. I struggle to a sitting position and sniff at the liquid. Old Kentucky. I drink deep, letting the warmth of the booze rush through my limbs, settle in my belly. Always takes the pain away. At least for a little while.
I pass it back. Her eyes are pools of darkness beneath the brim of the broad hat.
The big suitcase sits close to her knee.
“What’s in the case?” I ask.
She answers my question with a question.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
I blink at her, rub my eyes.
“I’m looking for a girl,” I say.
“What is her name?” she asks.
I stare at the heaps of trash about us as if there might be a clue hidden there. I run my hands across my battered body, looking for pockets. Looking for answers. I discover a big knife in my boot and a hand cannon strapped under my arm. In the pocket of my jacket I find a parking stub and a photograph.