After Midnight (16 page)

See, it was Friday…I can’t remember the date, and I’d been drinking at the bar down on Phillips Street. I had a hard day, you know. I was training this new guy to work under me, this nigger about as dumb as a box of rocks, and I was stressed as shit.

I usually stayed until around closing time, two or so, but that night I was feeling really loose and wanted to go get something to eat, go home, watch some tube, and fuck Carrie.

I stopped by this burger joint, got some chow, and ate it real quick before I got home. Carrie would have hated me going out with
my
money and getting some grub without picking her something up, and I didn’t feel like fighting. I stopped again at this little convenience store near our building and picked up some beer. Then I went home.

Freedman Apartments is a huge…complex, you know, with three buildings arranged in almost an upside down U.

So, I go on up, and before I even get through the door, I hear some shit going down inside. Screaming and bedsprings creaking.

I opened the door and poked my head in. It was dark, except for a spill of light coming from the bedroom. I had a direct line of sight on the bed, and I saw this
huge
motherfucker with back rolls and long greasy hair on top of Carrie, going to town, his shit flapping everywhere like a pan of Jell-O.

I fucking lost it then. I kept a little Saturday
Night Special under my seat in the car (I bought it after some weird looking gook tried to carjack me at a red-light in Innsmouth). So I ran down, got it, came back up, and joined the party.

When I calmed down a little bit I started to panic, you know. There were two bloody sacks of shit in my bed, and the neighbors probably heard the shots. So without even packing, I left. I withdrew my entire savings and hid out in a dirty motel room in Hyannis, about as far as I could get from
Arkham. After a few days it dawned on me that I had to ditch the U.S. and go somewhere where they don’t care who the hell you are. I remembered something I saw on the news about Nazis laying low in Argentina, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Okay, I’m
gonna go see if I can find something to eat. You know, there’re these big maggot looking grubs that pop and squirt when you bite them in the trees. I dug a few out with a piece of metal yesterday. They taste terrible, but at least they’re there.

July 12
h
?-Man, this flu is kicking my ass. I haven’t moved or eaten in…I don’t know. I just been laying here, sleeping and burning up. I been having strange dreams, too, about that monkey I ate coming outta the ground and coming after me like something from that
Dawn of the Dead
movie. It’s horrible, matted fur, fangs glistening with drool, fucking shrieking like monkeys do, you know, OUOU-AHAH! Scares the shit outta me.

I’m thirsty too, but I can’t find anything to drink. I dragged myself down to the Amazon and stuck my head in. I was
so
thirsty, my lips dry and sticking together. I don’t have the energy to go all the way back down there now. It’ll be dark soon. Maybe I can sleep.

July 14
th
?-Why won’t they come? Why? Don’t they know a fucking plane went missing?

July18?-Fever’s worse.

July?

I hear Beatles songs in my sleep. I am the walrus
Goo goo g' job

August 99

How many days has it been?

Goo goo g' job

Too many in the sun.
I dont know where I am but its getting darker and thicker all the time. My fevers back and I’m
soooooooo
cold.

Where am I?

Goo goo g' job.

Who am I?

IM THE EGGMAN GOO GOO G’MOTHERFUCKING’JOB!

1979

Theyre
outthere I hear them plotting against mee talkin in monkee language.

dday

They came for me today. They wear people clothes and carry machetes. I jumped out of the
bushesand bashed ones headin.they never catch me

Iam
the eggman
g
oogoogjob.

First appeared in the January 1945 issue of
Amazing!
magazine, by Yuri Zenin

In June 1936, I defected from the Soviet Union by way of Poland. I won’t tell you how I did it, but I will tell you why.

It all goes back to 1921, when I was still a boy of fifteen in Petrograd. My father was a loyal Communist Party member, and had fought in the October Revolution alongside Stalin (a fact of which I am quite ashamed). Our accommodations were comfortable (we lived in a house on the western fringe of the city), and we hardly wanted for anything.

The year I turned fifteen, I began working in a grocery store. It was there, in January of the aforementioned year, that I met Professor Villy Zyrnof.

The Professor was a local resident, inhabiting a nearby slum tenement, and was in the store quite often. At first, I thought that he must be a mountain man, for he was short but very solidly built, his wide, flat face covered in coarse black hair. I was surprised, then, to learn of his position with the university and of his love for science, a passion which I shared.

Professor Zyrnof and I quickly became friends, and he invited me to his building, where he conducted experiments in the boiler room.

At first, he showed me only his most elementary work; in his rooms, I was awed to find, was a Venus Fly-Trap who could speak, repeating simple phrases
Zyrnof had taken great pains to teach it. Shortly, however, he began taking me deeper and deeper into his studies, until we reached the darkest pit.

In 1919,
Zyrnof had lost his beloved mother to tuberculosis. Devastated by her death, he began working on an unspeakable program to raise the dead.

The first time I beheld the boiler room, I nearly screamed, for there, laid out upon a table, was a dead man, his groin covered with a white sheet. Next to him was a shelf boasting an array of instruments. On the other side, at his left hand, was an odd contraption that appeared to be nothing more than a mess of rubber tubes.

Zyrnof believed that by removing the blood, warming it, and putting it back in the body, you could restart the heart. He admitted, though, that his success had been limited to a few wanton twitches here and there.

I was horrified, but also intrigued.
Zyrnof invited me to assist him, and I jumped at the chance.

Now, the first three years were characterized by total and utter failure. The first time a body twitched during the “recycling” process, I was exhilarated, but by the millionth, I was blasé. Then, one wintery night in 1924, after
Zyrnof slightly altered his formula, we progressed.

Professor
Zyrnof’s type of work was frowned upon by the Soviet establishment, so procuring bodies meant stealing them, typically at the height of freshness. We took that particular body from a potter’s field in a village several miles outside the city; a man, slight, scrawny, and Slavic.

Zyrnof
hooked him up to the machine and we waited.

And waited.

Finally, just as we were preparing to write it off as another failure, the man’s eyes opened, he sucked a gulp of air, and screamed.

That scream
. That awful scream. There was something Satanic to it, something sour. This was not a man, we knew in our souls, but a thing from Beyond in a man’s body.

Petrified above all reason,
Zyrnof and I fled the horrid boiler room and crashed out into the night. I was so terrified that I must have blacked out for a period, for I have no memory of things until we were surrounded by police in the middle of the street.

We were taken to the city’s jail and left for nearly a week. I was certain that we were going to die or be banished to Siberia. Surprisingly, however, we were liberated by government officials.
From what I gathered, my father, furious that I had “been led into ghastliness” by Zyrnof, talked to the Professor, who told him everything.

It was later that I learned with a shiver of horror that the thing we had resurrected was alive and well, living with its family once more.  I told the Professor that that thing was not human, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Concepts such as souls meant nothing to him. To him, bodies were but machines.

After 1924, Professor Zyrnof and I were heroes of Soviet science. In the papers, we were called “The Men Who Raised The Dead.” And raise we did. In just three months, we revived over fifty people from death.

We were national icons.

Then it started happening. The dead we restored began to kill, and rape, and set fires, and steal, and kill again. We don’t know why. The Professor and I spoke about it at length, and he came to the conclusion that the specimens, as he called them, were returning brain damaged from lack of oxygen, and that this damage manifested itself in the form of violence. I was of the opinion that the bodies, alive without their souls, were playing host to...something. Of course, Zyrnof laughed and called me a fool, but all I had to do was bring up that first revival, and he would fall silent.

Needless to say, the government was
very
unhappy with us, but, after all of the revivals had been captured and shot (or shoved into gulags), allowed us time to reinvent the formula.

Time and time again we repeated the same steps. We brought the dead back to life, became heroes in the eyes of the Kremlin, and then had to go back to the drawing board. Finally, in 1936, Stalin himself ordered us to succeed at last or die.

And we failed to a degree unimaginable. Looking down into the cold, white eyes of the child strapped to the table, I knew.

So I fled.

I don’t know what happened to Zyrnof, nor do I wish to. Stalin probably killed him himself. Funny, you’d expect a little more gratitude. After all, we brought
him
back several times...

Steven Rosa had trouble finding Jefferson Street. It ran along the edge of the industrial district, a narrow lane of tall, crumbling tenements; trash strewn sidewalks, and rusted junk-heaps parked crookedly along the curb. The sky over the ancient roofs was a dirty orange smear, and the cold rain fell in a thin, oily drizzle.

He’d lived in a neighborhood much like this when he went to college back in the early nineties. It was an awful place, dangerous after dark and never quiet: someone was always shooting, an ambulance was always crying, loud music was always playing. Looking for a spot to park in, he wondered if he’d find his car gutted when he came back. It was too nice to leave out. He’d return and find it a ghost of its former self, much like the cars along the street now.

Steve sighed. Oh well. He could afford another one if he had to. He could afford several. Why not? Fucking blood money. He didn’t want it anymore, anyway.

Finally, he slipped into a spot between a faded Cadillac and a battered Toyota
Tercell. For a long moment he sat in the driver seat, gripping the smooth leather wheel and pumping himself up for what he had to do. A large box-van slowly ambled down the street, and a man in a black hoodie darted down the sidewalk heading north, holding something over his head to guard against the rain. God, how he wished he could be in that guy’s place instead of his own.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
They're your mistakes; you have to fix them
.

He opened his eyes again. The rain pattered on the wet windshield with renewed force. The weatherman said most of the state would be sopping wet by Thursday when the system finally moved out.

God
, he thought miserably,
am I doing the right thing?

He received no answer. Not that he expected one. The days of God talking from a burning bush were over. Steven Rosa didn’t have the luxury of talking to Him like Noah or Moses or Jonah did. He
did
have a gut, though, and deep in it he knew what the right thing was. Maybe not in Heaven, but on earth.

Steve sighed, and reached to the glove box. Inside, under a mess of papers, he found the .38, the handle polished redwood and the barrel cold black steel. He glanced around to make sure no one saw, and then slipped it into his coat. It weighed heavy in his pocket, and its outline burned against his flesh.

He got out of the car and into a gust of wind-driven rain. He shut the door, locked it, and strode deliberately away, across the street and down the sidewalk, purposely side-stepping the murky glow cast by feeble street lights. He met only a woman in a long dark pea-coat and shiny leather boots. She smiled at him. A beautiful blond with dark eyes and a seemingly slender frame. He wondered what she had, or didn’t have, on under the coat.

56 Jefferson was a rather small, box-like apartment building with a dull tan façade and a stone stoop. Through the lobby doors, Steve saw several young black men sitting on the stairs, talking and laughing. For a moment he almost walked past the door, but then thought better of it. He could put almost anyone on his
list off, but not Addison. Addison had to be dealt with
tonight
.

Taking a deep breath that he blew away in a puff of ghostly steam, Steve climbed the wet steps, opened the door, and walked in, warm air that smelt of disinfectant wafting over him.

The young black men stopped talking and studied him, perhaps wondering how to rob him, perhaps wondering  what a guy in a nice suit, overcoat, and nice wingtip shoes was doing in a dumpy ‘hood like theirs. Steve smiled as the men moved for him. He probably looked like a mobster. His smile faded as he climbed higher and higher. They would remember him. They would remember him easy, and when the police came they might talk.

Telling
himself that there was nothing he could do, Steve followed the stairs to the third floor, where they ended. The hall was dim and eerily quiet, the only sounds muffled TV noises. The carpet was shag, puke green, and littered with cigarette butts, empty hamburger wrappers, and crushed beer cans.
Jesus Christ
, he thought, wrinkling his nose. It stank of stale urine, mold, and rotten…meat? He didn’t know
what
, but he knew it was the most wretched mingle of odors he’d ever come up against.
What kind of people
are
these?

One was Addison. Mark Addison.
That dirty, slimy, sick, pervert motherfucker. Mark J. Addison.

For a moment, Steve was appalled at himself for helping that son of a bitch,
knowing
he was guilty. Why did he do it? To earn the reputation as a top lawyer? Why did he help a guilty man walk?

Was he really
that
bad a person? Did he really value money that much once?

Shaking with revulsion and unconsciously gritting his teeth, Steve tried to remember Addison’s number. Apartment 19C. Was that it? Is that where the animal lived?

He pulled a slip of paper from his coat pocket. 18B.

He stuffed it back
in, and walked down the hall. At the end he found the room, the door shut and cracked, looking about as strong as a wet piece of pulp wood. There was a peephole. He knocked.

For a long moment, nothing.
He was starting to wonder if he had the wrong address, or if Addison was out, when he heard muffled footfalls and a hacking smoker’s cough behind the door. He tensed, his heartbeat quickening, and took a deep breath.

The door opened.

Addison was a small man with shaggy blond hair, a mustache and beard, and bleary, bloodshot eyes. He was dressed in a plain gray sweater, jeans, and woolen socks. He looked at Steve for a long, uncomprehending moment.

“Yeah?” he croaked, swaying on his feet.

“Hey, Mark,” Steve said, struggling to keep control of his voice. It didn’t tremble, and it didn’t reveal the disgust he felt.

“Hey,” Addison said uncertainly.

“Mark! Come on, you remember me. Steve!” Steve smiled, trying his best not to let his true emotions show through.

“Steve?”

“Yes!” he laughed. “Steve Rosa, your defense attorney.”

Addison seemed to sober. “Aw, shit, yeah, damn, Stevie, come on in.” He stepped aside, and Steve
entered. The apartment was surprisingly tidy. An easy chair sat before a glowing TV. The kitchen was immaculate. The curtains hanging over the living room windows were unwrinkled and clean.

Addison ambled unceremoniously back over to his chair and plopped down with a sigh. “What’re you
doin'
here
, Stevie? I thought you still lived in Boston.”

“I did,” Steve lied, “but I moved out here last week and heard you were around so…I thought I’d look you up.”

Addison took a long swig of beer from a plain brown bottle. “Yeah? That’s cool. What, did you and the missus get a divorce or somethin'?”

“Yep,” Steve said.

“It’s a bitch, huh?”

“Yep.”

Addison looked at him. “Want a beer?”

 
Steve shook his head. “Nah, I’m gotta go here in a minute. Just thought I’d drop in and see how you are.”

Addison smiled. “Shit, that’s nice of you. I’m
doin’ alright. Been better, though. My back’s been hurtin' me really bad the past couple months. Sciatica, doctor said. He wants me to get a job where I don’t have to lift, but I can’t. Construction's what I do. Been doin’ it since I was sixteen. Go nothin’ else. Don’t even have a diploma.”

“Yeah, yeah.
You should try for…for your GED. The way the economy is, the construction business…”

Addison cut him off. “You got
that
right. Work’s been comin’ in trickles since that nigger took office.”

Steve nodded uncomfortably. “Yeah, he hasn’t done much to help.”

“That’s what you get when you let a goddamn nigger in power. Look at Africa. They’re all living in the dirt ‘cause they can’t run a country.” Addison shook his head and took a long drink of his beer.

“Well, Mark, it’s been good seeing you again. I
gotta get going. Busy man, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mark stood, wincing, “leave me your number, why don’t you?”

“Okay,” Steve reached into his coat, and then stopped. “Mark…can I ask you something?”

Addison was stretching like an aged boxer ready to enter the ring and reclaim lost glory. “Sure.”

“I was reading the paper the other day” – another lie, so many, but at least they were white – “and I saw they found a little girl dead and raped in a warehouse down the street.”

“Awful, ain’t it?”

Steve nodded. “It was. They said the sick bastard who did it…cut off one of her nipples, and left teeth marks on the breast.”

“Yeah,” Addison
  said flatly. “Sick puppies out there.”

“That’s…that’s what happened to Megan Anderson, Mark, same thing exactly.”

Addison froze. Megan Anderson was thirteen when she vanished from a city park five years before. Her body was found at the docks three weeks later, beaten, raped, bitten, and  strangled with her panties. The day she disappeared, a pedophile named Mark Addison got a parking ticket in the same general area, around pretty much the same time. He had been convicted in 1994 of molesting his eight-year-old niece in Vienna, Virginia, and served only nine years of his sentence thanks to a Democratic governor. Steven  Rosa had  attached himself to the case only because of its high-profile nature: somehow it became a story of national interest.

“You ain’t asking
me
if I had anything to do with it, right?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s pretty odd, isn’t it?”

Addison still didn’t move. “Look, I told you; I…I lost control when I saw the Anderson bitch. I dealt with it, you know? I told you it would never happen again, and it hasn’t.”

“But it did.”

“No! I swear!” Addison threw up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Look, I can prove I didn’t do it. Just call my boss, he’ll tell you. I was with him.”

“I already have, Mark; he said you left for lunch that day and didn’t come back until the next morning. That girl was reported missing at six.”

Addison, eyes suddenly clear, cold and reptilian, sighed. “What do you want, a bribe?”

“No. I don’t do that anymore.” With that, he pulled out the pistol and emptied all six chambers into Mark Addison’s guts.

The turnpike stretched into the
night. Steve squinted and peered into the rain. How many more until he could sleep at night?

Robert Horner, a small-time crook who stabbed an old lady during a mugging in 1995, lived in the tiny village of Raven's Mill, three hundred miles east, in the foothills of the West Virginian mountains. Steve figured he could be there by daybreak...