Everybody Scream! (40 page)

“I
know
that, I work here.” The old woman waddled toward the open door, clucking her cow-sized Choom tongue again.

“What is it? Louder,” Hector urged the fallen man.

“Gatherers...the Gatherers...they’re coming,” the man croaked, trembling violently, feverish. His eyes blazed, insane.

But a violent tremor went through Hector as well, almost a thrill of recognition...though a nightmarish thrill. A thrill of unreality. The Gatherers.
They
in the dimension that was nothing more than a stockyard had spoken–wailed, in terror–about something called Gatherers. They couldn’t explain what the Gatherers were...and it had simply been assumed by the researchers that this referred to those particular Bedbugs who were assigned the task of stocking the astral pen, though to Hector’s knowledge no one knew how they accomplished it.

“They bring us here!” the man on the floor rasped in a deeper tone. Then, his voice altering again:

“They reach into our world!”

“They’re coming...Gatherers...the one on the moon is just a
nymph!
”

Hector was filled with loathing and horror now–he wanted to tear free of this man and run. Run for his sanity. It seemed that several different minds were alternating in voicing themselves through this unwilling medium. Voices so familiar in their fear and desperation.

But he remained, and asked the man, “What are the Gatherers?”

“The Bugs call them…” The voice seemed to be the man’s own now, but no less frantic. “…they call them. They were on the moon before, to call them. Three are coming through tonight. The nymph on the moon–it’s through. The bank…the bank…”

“My God,” Hector said, lifting his head.

“The Gatherers collect the harvest. They reach into our world and take what they can, but tonight three are coming through to take more. They want more. The Bugs…worship them. They pay them tribute. Then the Gatherers collect the harvest for them…”

“The leg,” Hector said.

“We have to stop them! We have to stop…they’re taking away the dead…”

“Listen to me…listen…”

“Vortex! Oh my
God
, don’t you see now? I see it now! Oh…my God…and I’ve
snorted
it! I never knew! I don’t think Karny even knows…”

“What do you mean?” Hector recognized the man at last. His aspect had been different before, but he’d seen him with the group from whom he had purchased his drugs. Purple vortex. It had entered his mind upon seeing a Martian inside the van.

“We don’t get vortex from the Bugs…we get it from the Lobu. Everyone thinks the Lobu make it, but Karny found out. Karny found out. The Lobu get one of the main ingredients from the Bedbugs. No one knows. It’s their farts.” Now the man laughed crazily, tears streaming out of his eyes, blood running down both sides of his face into his ears. “They fart purple gas. The Bugs. That’s what the Lobu buy and put in the vortex. That’s what it is…”

“Jesus,” hissed Hector. Not laughing. He looked out of the building again, as if to locate them out there somewhere. The leg. The smoking, camera-like device. The one on The Head.
Just a nymph
…

“They fart out the gas. The gas is from
them
…their harvest...after they eat it. And we sell it.” The man blubbered, hysterical. “We’ve
snorted
it. And we never knew what they were
eating
…”

At least that much Hector had already known.

The hand crushed his arm in a convulsive return of strength. The man sat up a little as if jolted. “Don’t let me die! Don’t let me die–
please!
They’ll take me…they’ll take me! We gotta stop them! Hurry–
hurry!
Go tell somebody! Don’t let me die–
please!
Pleeeease!”

He screamed, arched his back as if a greater voltage now jolted him, and shook. Hector fell onto his back in wrenching his arm free. The shriek rose to an inhuman pitch. The birds smashed in their cells, down puffing up into the air, straw kicked out by their electrified feet. Hector stood up in time to see Sneezy Tightrope die. His skull did its best to resist the inner explosion but his head cracked open a little in a few places nonetheless. The shriek gurgled away, the shaking took a little longer as the body gradually relaxed from its rigid arched position, sinking down like a parachute to settle. The thick blood pouring from the fissures was almost a peaceful thing–like a release.

A release?

A cage toppled off of the bench-like table, and as Hector scrambled to his feet he glanced over. The sight inside the cage transfixed him. He had to go and look closer, and at the other cages…even as his flesh crawled.

In various states of progression, each bird was painfully splitting, dividing, amoeba-like, into a new bird. Tangled wings and legs, agonized heads thrashing, honking.

Hector fled the building.

Bern had no idea how old the Lobu female was–they could naturally live to be a thousand or more on their home world, and even on polluted, violent Oasis they could easily reach five hundred. He didn’t know much about them; their politics, their religions, their art or architecture. He did know, however, from a friend at school, that their kind had three distinct sexes, two being “male,” so that accidental pregnancy was less likely to occur, since the female must copulate with both males, one sort always before the other, within a few hours in order to become fertilized. Thus, they had been free for many generations to enjoy their sexuality without fear or restraint or inhibition. Only generally known to the Earth colonies for a decade, they had already become highly desirable sex partners. They were well known, also, for their use of drugs. Their long life spans made it less pressing to raise children, and these were taken care of in boarding schools, largely segregated from the adult world, until they reached sexual maturity at the surprisingly early age of five. Theirs was a hedonistic, almost utopian life-style, without sexual repression, discrimination or fear, and thus they had few wars, their religions non-patriarchal despite the two-to-one ratio of “males.” But they did, sometimes, become bored and discontented in their later years. Some branched to other worlds to combat this now that space travel had been introduced to them–not invented by them, due to a certain stagnation in technology. Others committed suicide…not uncommonly.

Bern didn’t know much of all this, though he did draw comparisons with the Wedling Way, a similar belief system–religion?–practiced by certain humanoids and even Earth humans in which each member, or wedling, could have ten wedlings for mates, and each of them ten wedlings, and so on. Many wedlings were bisexual. Again, in the Wedling Way the members lived extra-long lives, though through artificial means, which in the Earth colonies was illegal to such an extent, as was cloning, but it was allowed here as an essential of a specific belief system. At a thousand, though, the wedlings by their own laws were required to halt all artificial means of prolongation and live out the remainder of their lives naturally. Bern did idly wonder if many, many years ago the Lobu had passed a variation of their belief system on to a humanoid group who came into contact with some of them, perhaps captured as sex slaves.

It was a highly desirable thing to be accepted into the web of the Wedling Way–Bern knew of a few famous actresses and singers who had been allowed into this lucky following. He had fantasized about it. Tales of wedlings committing suicide or breaking off from the order hadn’t reached him and wouldn’t have altered his fantasy. He had also fantasized about the Lobu females. One thing he did know,
the
one thing he had seized upon, was that they had two equally inviting vaginal openings, with a strange set of four mandible-like digits outside which they could insert into corresponding vents in the groins of their males so as to stimulate them. His friend had told of the expert use of these digits in the fondling and manipulation of the human scrotum and anus.

The Lobu female seated a few tables over from him was alone, delicately spooning herself ice cream, and casting glances at him, suppressing a smile (a stiff expression adopted from humans). She was taller than he, slender and hairless, her polished flesh a softly mottled green and orange, looking like pliable agate. Her very humanoid face was lovely and large-eyed, without a nose, the only unpleasant feature for Bern being the two large ear holes. She wore only a diaper-like piece to hide her middle area, her chest flat and without nipples but with two pink gill-like openings on either side which resourceful humanoid males had also discovered to be gratifying areas for penetration.

Funny she should be alone, but judging from that and from her subtle yet still obvious flirtation Bern decided she must be a prostitute.

She was nearly finished eating, and he was concerned that she would leave if he didn’t act soon. He couldn’t expect her to take the role of aggressor–a much sought after Lobu wouldn’t have to, so wouldn’t be likely to. And the longer he hesitated the greater the chances of someone else seizing the opportunity. But could he afford her? His friend had said that they didn’t come cheap. He had his gold-dust now, though, he reasoned…if she had one of those tube-things his friend had said they inserted in their chest gills to inhale it.

Why be intimidated by this gem? He wasn’t shy, and his beers also made him bold. She wouldn’t be making eyes at him with those glossy pink-irised orbs if she thought him beneath her. He rushed down the last of his beer, mostly foamy backwash. His friend had said their skins were cool like forest-shaded stone, and that they had no offensive body odors–rather, a pleasant natural exhalation from their gills reminiscent of the warm cozy smell of hot apple cider. Bern was smiling as he rose from his table and started around it toward hers. The beer went to his head as he stood, so he kept one hand to the table for support. Her eyes were on him with a look of sweet, mild surprise…feigned innocence. Yes, he was going to get lucky tonight after all.
Very
lucky. From an extremely negative alien encounter to this…it had been worth it, and Pox’s lateness…

Pox…the drugs…God! he turned and saw his gym bag still on the bench where he’d been sitting–abandoned. A couple with three small children were already taking his place, one of the children reaching for the handles of the bag to pull it toward him for inspection.

“Ah, hey, excuse me…excuse me.” Bern almost stumbled in his haste to get back. “That’s my bag, thanks.”

“Can ya prove it?” said the boy, dragging the bag close.

“Ben!” his mother scolded, wrenching the bag from him. “Sorry.”

“No problem–thank you.” Bern accepted his bag. Man, that was close! But despite the acceleration of his heartbeat his good spirits hadn’t much faltered, and he turned back toward the Lobu with a grin.

The agate-skinned, willowy Lobu was still coyly smiling at him, but the Torgessi standing a bit behind her wasn’t–it glared, actually, making for an interesting yin and yang composition.

“Ohh–man,” Bern groaned, then spinning away to flee. He met the eyes of the mother who had given him back his gym bag. “Help–get a security guard–someone’s trying to kill me!”

“You’d better run,” said the little boy who’d found his bag.

Bern looked. Here it came. The Lobu female had ceased to exist to him; he didn’t even see her. Just the skull-visaged Torgessi, big and getting bigger. His gym bag tucked to him like a football, he took the boy’s advice.

“Look out, look out, look out!” Bern plunged through a flock of girls in their early teens. He collided with one and the both of them fell, him heavily atop her. She screamed. Her friends yelled at him. He scrambled to his feet. His partner in collision kicked upwards at him. Her heel caught him in the crotch. He gasped, stumbled away from her and fell again on hands and knees. “Ahh…God…you
fish!
” he choked.

“Pollinate me, you gagger skiz!” the girl screeched, rising to give him a sharp kick in the rear.

Bern reared up, swung his bag in an arc, caught the girl in the head with it. She went down. The Torgessi was there where she had been. Hands. His shirt was snagged a moment in fingers but he was hurtling through, the one on the ground screeching in a near alien language.