Christmas Trees & Monkeys (24 page)

Shuffling feet from the tunnel mouths, worn shoes on dust, dry feet whispering. Soon the shapes. Shufflers, too many to count, following his heat and blood scent, emerging from both sides. Dinneck moved to the center of the platform, heart racing. His instincts screamed for him to run back through the turnstiles and into the sun. One more day, one more week, the Power protecting him at night might last
that
long.

Perhaps this was how Jesus felt seeing the soldiers marching up the hill to arrest him. Dinneck could not leave. He must die today. He was now the two fish with which God would feed the masses. The two walls of lumbering bodies merged together, silent save their steps. They stopped. A sound like a police siren, organic and wet, sent them into uncertain hesitancy.

A Runner came up the abandoned tracks, so fast Dinneck thought for a moment it was a train. It scrabbled onto the platform. The Shufflers moved aside, a demonic Moses parting them like the sea. The creature reared up. Tall, with strong, muscular legs bent nearly ninety-degrees to prevent it from hitting the ceiling. Its segmented body glistened as if adorned with flakes of mica. Dinneck could not make out many details, but could see its
shape
clearly enough. Large growths, like many heads along the front and sides of its body, four arms, two where one would expect them, two more reaching from behind like the bones of old wings. The Runner’s head sloped small and narrow, bird-like. The overall effect was utterly alien. Dinneck fought an instant revulsion - like looking too closely at the surreal features of a wasp, magnified a hundredfold. He wanted to run.
It
wanted him to run, if only to catch him again for sport.

The legs bent further, the body leaned forward, arms supporting the awkward bulk by slapping onto the concrete floor. He was being studied. The Shufflers, those for whom he’d come, moved closer. The Runner hissed/screamed its siren call. The others stopped, uncertain, wanting to devour the man standing before them but apparently not at the expense of this demon’s ire.

Dinneck suddenly thought he understood the nature of these Runners. They were shepherds, former wolves who now, after stealing the sheep, protect their captives from their own ignorance and blind wanderings.
Dinneck
was now the wolf, and the beast before him stared through dull red-glowing slits, deciding if he was a threat.

“
I am here to die,” Dinneck whispered. His tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth. He forced himself to swallow, then added in a louder voice, “I am an offering from God who has left this world to your devices.”

The Runner hissed. On either side, its flock moved forward and were allowed to pass. The Runner, slowly, moved back onto the tracks to wait, and watch.

A dozen arms grabbed Dinneck’s shirt, pulled him forward. He closed his eyes. He tried not to think, tried to send himself back to his old apartment, when Mira and Nicky were alive. An overwhelming need to run and survive gripped him as tight as the dead, hard-crusted fingers. The mass of Shufflers poured over him like a wave, pressed him to the floor. No hot breath on his neck, only the icy feel of teeth pressing down, splitting his flesh, the warmth of his own blood. Fire, ice, screaming pain through his body. Clothes and skin were torn away. A chunk of his leg pulled free, the stale air racing across his exposed arteries and muscle burned like acid.
Was
acid. So many on him, he couldn’t thrash or try to fight.

Dinneck was turned onto his back. Eyes still closed he managed one final scream before a mouth bit down on his chin, throat. Fingers peeled back his cheeks and eyelids, but he saw nothing.

* * *

The Runner on the tracks watched the feeding with relieved contentment. There were more Shufflers far back in the tunnels, pushing forward, pressing against those in front of them in their need to consume, to taste even a drop of this new blood. The heat of the victim bathed the platform with an intoxicating glow in their eyes.

Something changed. Where once a pulsing mound of Shuffler bodies heaved and writhed atop Dinneck’s body, the Runner now noticed many of its kin no longer moved. Others, impatient, shoved them aside, scrounged with dry lips what might be left, shards of bones, bloody rivulets squeezed away from the feeding.

The mound of bodies grew.

The demon on the tracks noticed too late what was happening. It howled and leapt onto the platform, shoving its way through, tossing Shufflers, both moving and still, aside.

There was little left of Dinneck’s body. Wads of flesh, fluid spilled across the floor only to be covered by a desperate black tongue. A long white bone protruding from the mouth of another, though the mouth no longer moved. The Runner swatted at a piece of intestine and felt its preternatural flesh burn. It backed away, screamed again. Still the horde pressed past it, not just in hunger, now driven by something awakening inside them, desperate for the communion being offered.

Eventually there was nothing left of the man but multi-hued stains on the concrete, heavy lumps of Dinneck’s flesh buried within the unmoving Shuffler bodies. When the smell and heat dissipated the mob moved back into the tunnel, leaving the Runner to shove the empty husks of its lost flock off the platform and onto the tracks. It didn’t know what else to do for the moment. Its hand still burned where it had touched the victim’s flesh.

* * *

Dinneck moved through the clouds into the vastness of space. He sensed others with him but could not look to see who they were. He waited for the Light of God to appear from the star-filled dark and embrace him.

Further, further into the cold of the universe he traveled, always waiting for the ethereal doors of heaven to open and swallow him into the Light. Somewhere there was the green grass and fields where his son played. He wanted to believe Mira was one of the freed souls traveling with him. Had she been there, in the subway? Maybe. He had to believe, have faith.

They traveled out, out, into the black void, calling with silent voices. Waiting for the embrace. Waiting for the answer.

— — — — —

About “Tanner’s Bomb”

Wow, you’re still with me? That’s great. We save one of my favorites for last. Personally, I think this is one of funniest stories I’ve written. Only one other person I know thinks that, too. Everyone else has commented that it’s one of my scariest pieces. Trust me, it’s not. It’s funny. And scary. Funny and scary.

Anyway, “Tanner’s Bomb” isn’t the original name. When I first concocted the idea for this story, then-wife Janet and I were on a five hour bus trip to New York City with Kevin and Connie McCarthy. Our own bus was overbooked, so they put us in with a church group from town, and we had to sit separately. I guess even the ecclesiastical nature of the passengers had no sway in letting me sit with my wife - still, they had Bingo, so that was something.

With nothing to keep me company but my own imagination and an older woman who slept for most of the ride, I decided to come up with a bizarre title and see if I could conjure a story to go with it. At that moment a Christmas tree truck drove by (those flatbed tractor-trailers rigged up every holiday season to carry trees to various gas stations and mall parking lots). So, I had the first part of the title: “As the Christmas Tree Truck Drives By...” but I needed something to go with it. Since I was in a sour mood, I decided on “Spit”.

Over the next five hours, between spurts of Bingo, I wrote in my head the story “As the Christmas Tree Truck Drives By, Spit.” Of course, before I decided to market it, I changed the name to the much simpler: “Tanner’s Bomb”. It has since become, in my mind, a must-read classic for every holiday season.

Tanner’s Bomb

“
I’m so sorry. I just wanted to help. So many dead....”

“
It’s OK. Have some more apple cider. Relax.” Detective McGovern guided the arm holding the styrofoam cup up until the man took a drink of his own accord. Max Tanner winced, then took another sip. The smell of smoke drifting off his leather jacket overpowered the spicy tang in the air of the greenhouse. He looked at the detective.

“
Did you go see? Did someone go see?”

“
Yes. Some of the residents were sent to Pelham Medical Center for treatment. Some sort of a catatonic shock. We’ll see what the doctors have to say. DSS is sending a crew to look after all the children. But no bodies. Mister Tanner, did you hear me? They found no bodies.”

Max stared into the steam rising from his cup. “No bodies.” He took a sip. “No, I suppose there wouldn’t be.”

A uniformed officer with a day’s stubble staining his face said, “All right, that’s enough. Let’s just take this guy to -”

The detective raised his hand. “Maybe you should tell us exactly what happened, Mister Tanner. From the beginning.” He looked at his watch. “Just keep to the highlights. It IS Christmas Eve….”

Max thought about that. Christmas Eve. Had someone told Pam and the boys? Daddy wouldn’t be coming home. Daddy was a murderer. An overwhelming sadness gripped him, both for himself and the people of that damned town. He looked at the large Christmas tree standing unlit by the door.

“
Promise you’ll leave that tree unplugged?”

The detective nodded. “Yes, we promise. Tell us what happened.”

Max told them. “It started when I had to go to the bathroom…”

* * *

Max joined Bing Crosby in an off-key rendition of “Chestnuts Roasting...” as the eighteen wheeler lumbered along the two-lane highway. Massive pines stood along both sides of the road, in silent respect to their fallen comrades. Laying in state on the flat-bed, one hundred and fifty scotch pine and spruce crowded between makeshift railings. Soon to be Christmas trees, on their way to Pelham and a hundred and fifty cozy homes. One of them belonged to the Tanner family. As a weak but acceptable incentive for this last-minute delivery, Max had his choice of the best tree of the run. All he had to do was drop off the one hundred forty-nine others at Henson’s “Tree Farm,” then ten minutes later he’d be home. Not a bad deal all around. From under the passenger seat poked the oversized Wal-Mart bag with three sets of tree lights.

Max sang and glanced at the map. He should have hit Holy Refuge by now. The red circle surrounding the village’s borders made it easy to spot. As did the words “Stay Away!” with an arrow pointing to said circle. Normally Max followed Bart’s scattered map notes, but not tonight. He was fifteen minutes ahead of schedule and really had to find a bathroom. The town, seemingly dropped in the middle of the northern Massachusetts Berkshires, was the only option aside from ruining his pants or squatting in the woods somewhere. The latter was never an option in his mind.

A robed figure suddenly appeared over the rise, leaning awkwardly on a walking stick. Max downshifted and rolled down the window. Frigid air blasted into the cab. He never got a chance to ask for directions. As the truck rolled within yelling distance, the white-haired man raised both the gnarled walking stick and the hood of his robe over his head. He signed himself clumsily and disappeared into the late-afternoon shadows of the forest.

The truck drifted by the spot where Max
thought
he’d seen a man having a seizure. Nobody there.

“
Loony bastard.” He shut off the radio. A group of teenage boys ran into the woods just ahead of him. Long hoods flew from their heads as they faded into the trees.

Great
, Max thought.
I’m driving into a cult
. The headlights limited his vision in the increasing gloom. He downshifted again, looked for an entrance to somewhere, anywhere.

There it was. A dirt road; too small for the rig, but it’d be worth a look-see. The gears hissed and barked. The truck rolled to a stop at the path’s entrance.

“
Holy Refuge, I presume,” Max whispered. Houses at the top of the hill huddled close, clustered in deepening circles around a dimly lighted common. He couldn’t see much more from this vantage point. A crowd of monk-like townspeople, ropes dangling at their waists, ran toward him.

Max rolled up his window.

As they approached, the group slowed. Hoods concealed most of their faces. One figure moved cautiously forward. Various unrecognizable gestures accompanied each step. Max began to wonder if this was a deaf-person cult. He pressed the emergency break and opened the door. A little.

“
You can’t stop here,” the man within the robe said. He was clearly distressed, diverting his eyes from the cab. Max felt braver. He opened the door the rest of the way and stepped down. He bent to look into the cowl.

“
Hi, there. My name’s Max Tanner. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

The man didn’t look at him. “Hello, Max. I’m David. Please, I saw the sign on your door. You drive for Callebri Brothers?”

“
Yea, that’s right. Listen, all I need is to use -”

“
We have an agreement with the owner. Bartholomew Callebri. You aren’t suppose to be here.”

“
Oh, really,” Max said, then remembered the red circle. “Well, no, I guess I’m not.” The cramps sent him a painful reminder. “ Listen. Do you have a bathroom?” Four robed men emerged from the woods next to the trailer. They hunkered down on the roadside; began drawing pictures in the dirt. One of them lowered his hood. Gray hair stuck out like a clown’s wig. He was old, wrung-out and twisted like the walking staffs they carried. The clown-haired man, eyes closed, raised his face to the truck. He opened two fingers scissor-like to his lips, then hacked a wad of spit towards the trailer. It landed on a wooden rail, dripped onto a pine branch.