Everybody Scream! (43 page)

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe it, little man. Hey–why hold it against her? You had your friends and she had me. Anyway, like she told me, she’s had others before me and you knew about that...so what’s one more?”

“My wife wouldn’t go to bed with a stinking monster like you.”

“Your wife got wet because I was a stinking monster. Women like stinking monsters. They just can’t accept it. They tell themselves they want nice little supposedly respectable moneymaking cowards like you.”

“Tightrope read my mind…that’s how you know about the mole. You can’t fool me.”

“You look like you’re gonna
cry
, son…aw, don’t do that. Look, if you don’t want to believe, then don’t. If you want to think Sneezy read your mind, then comfort yourself. But I’m not fooling you. You’re fooling yourself. Alright?” Leng started past Del. His face passed close and Del fought the impulse to withdraw from it. “Give that luscious ass one last kiss for me, will ya? Right on the mole.”

Laughter. Del took one step after him. Someone had his arm, suddenly.

Walpole. “Don’t. He wants it.”

“I’ll kill him,” Del rasped. Now he let himself swallow…it was, indeed, a very loud gulp.

“Forget it–he’s lying. He’s just intimidating you because of Mort, and he’s upset about Sneezy. He’ll get over it. I’ll talk to Karny. Anyway, we’ll be gone tomorrow so it’s best to let it go. He’s just taking out his frustrations. He’s lashing out. Don’t fall for it…he’s lying.”

A long shuddery breath rattled out of Del. Something like relief…but it was not something he could entirely exhale out of him.

Walpole let go of his arm as Leng’s swaggering form receded, went on: “Go see Zebo, man. I’ll call the med trailer later to hear what you find out, alright? Walk it off, man–it’s nothing. Don’t let him make a fool out of you. It’s nothing.”

“Right,” muttered Del Kahn, and he strode away from Eddy Walpole.

Eddy watched after him, much concerned. Certain he would see Kahn veer instead toward his home trailer or into the security station, in search of Sophi Kahn. But he didn’t…he seemed truly to be heading off for
Zebo’s Saucer
. A sigh of relief, but only partial. Only temporary. He was bound to question his wife sooner or later. What if she broke down and confessed?

A good thing they had already sent Crosby Tenderknots away on his bike with the vortex and the rest…but still he didn’t feel safe. Would Karny agree to packing it up tonight…
now?
Anyway, if the Bedbugs had murdered Sneezy that was another very good reason to get the hell out of here right away.

Had Walpole known how Leng had dealt with the threat of Fen Colon and Wes Sundry–discovered by Sneezy–and of the attention it was receiving, he would probably have been close to frantic right now.

But even then it wouldn’t have occurred to him to hop on his big
Dozer
and head out alone. He wouldn’t leave Karny.

The only customer in
Zebo’s Saucer
was so strikingly hideous for a non-mutant that Del forgot his mission for a moment. He had seen the Mo-mo-mo-mo in books and in vids but never in person. They had hulking, dark orange carrot-like bodies, creased almost into fissures, with a droopy branch-like antenna dangling from the top knob, not really a head in the human sense since the functions of a head were dispersed or not in identifiable evidence. One leg was a thick, twisted club of wrinkly flesh, the other a veiny, scrawny two-toed bird leg. One arm looked like a giant penis ending in long, tactile hairs, the other wasn’t really an arm but a huge warty barrel constantly oozing slime. The one large eye was situated at the barrel’s root. This particular specimen had a diaper-like garment covering the open bottom of its barrel, as it sat at the counter with a coffee in front of it. The Mo-mo-mo-mo were among the most consistently vain races of intelligent beings, arrogantly obsessed with their own self-proclaimed beauty and glamour. To them, the perfect symmetry of humanoids was a ghastly, too mathematical, too mechanical, artificial-seeming arrangement–a perverted ugliness bordering on abomination.

Zebo wasn’t dead. No cracks in his oversized, hairless head. He was closing up early, however. Though the tiny being never looked vivaciously healthy to Del, he did think that Zebo appeared a trifle wan as he came to meet him at the semicircular counter. “Howdy, Del,” he said.

“Zebo–how do you feel? Anything funny happen tonight?”

“What do you mean? Did somebody tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I’ve been picking up some, ah…”

“Telepathic transmissions?”

“Yes, that’s it. How did you know?”

“We’ve got a corpse down in the morgue. You know Sneezy Tightrope?”

“Yes.”

“Dead. His brain exploded.”

“Goodness. Well…mine didn’t, as far as I know. Ha. Strange.”

“I thought you might know something.”

“My customer here told me more than I could fathom.” Zebo nodded at the Mo-mo-mo-mo. “It’s telepathic also…more so than I.”

“Of course.” Del took in the asymmetrical being afresh. It had its hairy penis hand in its coffee mug. “So what did it say?”

“Well, it came in earlier…shortly after you were here. Ate, and left. After a big jolt it came back, knowing I was telepathic, to ask me if I had felt it, too…as you’re doing now.”

“Big jolt?”

“I’d been receiving something for several hours, mounting but low…then there was a massive jolt. I almost lost consciousness. So did the Mo-mo-mo-mo. There’s been a few lesser jolts since. I took some blockers after the first big one…I don’t know if that’s why the lesser jolts weren’t as bad. The Mo-mo-mo-mo can shut down its perception naturally, like closing an eyelid.”

“So Sneezy wasn’t murdered. Why’d his head explode, though?”

“Either he was too weak, or too close to the transmission source. The same jolt I felt, no doubt.”

“Do you think it’s a malfunctioned advertising wavelength, or some kind of attack on people’s minds, or what?”

“Oh, I know the what, and part of the why…as I said, mostly through the Mo-mo-mo-mo.”

“So what is it?”

“Bedbugs. They’re transmitting over a telepathic amplifier-projector device.”

“Bedbugs. Is it a weapon?”

“No–a communication device. And it isn’t their transmissions that are creating the jolts…but the
response
they’re receiving. That transmission is coming from a creature in another dimension. Not a Bedbug. I can’t tell what.”

“God,” Del muttered. Bedbugs. Yeah–come to think of it, maybe he had seen one or two lurking about; in their silent scurrying, easily blending into the shadows. He remembered that on two separate occasions, oddly enough, when he and Sophi had visited an art museum in town, they had seen a small group of Bedbugs clustered avidly around a certain ancient stone bas-relief portraying a tentacle-headed, winged mythical creature or god. Other times while riding subways he had seen some of the odd graffiti of that violent rogue gang of Bedbugs, and would think of a news story concerning a train that had been conveying a rival gang in the early morning hours, and which came to an unplanned stop in the dark of a tunnel. It was suddenly swarmed with Bedbugs, who left only two bulging-eyed innocent riders alive amongst the corpses to tell the tale. Strange beings, always conveying the mood of being up to something furtive and sneaky.

Zebo said, “They’re chanting to it…mostly praises. How intelligent it is, whether animal or being, we can’t tell. It’s some kind of symbolic fertility god to them, apparently.…they keep referring to a harvest of some sort. It seems very near. It must be
here
, but in another dimension. Supposedly it’s going to come through into our world tonight.”

“How come?”

“It pertains to their harvest. The Mo-mo-mo-mo noted something odd. It told me it sensed the Bedbugs observing animals here at the fair…experimenting on them. Something about seeing if their energy could be drawn from them while still alive, rather than after they were already dead.” Zebo chuckled. “I hope they don’t mean to feed their god some cows and bumbles.”

“They’d better not be experimenting on the animals here, the weird fucks. God…crazy. So that’s what killed Sneezy, huh?”

“Has to be. I surely felt it.”

“Of all things. No great loss, I mean…but man. Glad I’m not psychic.” Del glanced at the Mo-mo-mo-mo. God, it smelled. Like baby shit. Sometimes they referred to themselves as the Perfumed Ones.

“Night’s just about had it,” Zebo said. “Another year gone. I thought I’d close down a little early…I need some rest.”

“By all means. Well…” Del stepped back from the counter, watching Zebo tap a pen on his closed magazine. “That explains most of the Sneezy Tightrope mystery. I guess I’ll have Dingo send some guards out looking for the Bedbugs to tell them what happened and to be careful what they’re doing. And to see if they’re messing with our animals. This will have to be reported to the police.”

“Mm,” agreed Zebo.

“Well.” Del took a few steps toward the door. But his eyes were drawn once more to the vegetable-like hulk sitting at the counter. Zebo was watching Del’s hesitance expectantly, it seemed…waiting for him to say something. He did. “Just how strong is that thing, telepathically? I mean, can it focus on one person far away from it…among many other people?”

“Perhaps. Why?”

“Will you ask it to try and do that for me?”

Zebo turned, stared wordlessly at the Mo-mo-mo-mo. The single whale-like eye lazily rotated to gaze back at the tiny being. Del returned to the counter. He leaned away, however, as the Mo-mo-mo-mo’s drooping branch-like antenna suddenly began to lash and flick and spin crazily. He batted his lids in a protective reflex reaction.

Zebo faced Del. “It says it can try. Who do you have in mind?”

“My wife.”

“Sophi Kahn. What was her unmarried last name? Her sense of self and identity will be very tied up in her name awareness. It can track her through her name.”

“I have a picture.” Del reached behind for his wallet.

“No, no, just the name.”

“Her maiden name was Redshell.”

Zebo turned once again to the Mo-mo-mo-mo…once again the antenna twirled like copter blades, snapped like a whip. Zebo and Del waited. Del felt nauseous. The baby shit smell was definitely not helping.

Zebo looked to Del. “It has her. What is it you require?”

It had her. Sophi’s thoughts at this being’s disposal, a buffet spread before it. She would never suspect, like a woman undressing under the gaze of binoculars. Del swallowed. “Can it dig…can it find the name Johnny Leng in my wife? Can it tell me if she ever went to bed with him? Had sex with him?”

Zebo looked at the Mo-mo-mo-mo. Then the tentacle spasms. Del’s left hand pinched at the inside of his jacket’s pocket, rubbed the silk material. Zebo turned to Del, his alien face expressionless, and Del’s stomach rolled upside-down. Zebo said, “Yes, Johnny Leng is there…very strongly. There is much bitterness, much anger in your wife toward Johnny Leng. And fear, also. Yes…your wife did sleep with Johnny Leng.”

Then the bottom dropped out of Del’s chest. An insidious trapdoor. His heart fell end over end over end down a bottomless well, with a chilly vacant area left in its place, the whooshing tug of his plummeting heart sucking his spirit down after it. “How many times? More than once?”

“Yes.”

“
Willingly?
”

“Yes.”

“My God. My fucking, fucking God…”

“But not tonight. Not willingly tonight…”

“
Tonight?
” He wanted to cry. Her wanted to punch her.
Punch
her. She had confronted him about his cheating, made him promise to fight it, and now this. Words from their marriage ceremony hovered at the back of his mind, mockingly.
I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine
. Song of songs. He both liked those words for the circle of harmony they made and disliked them for the implication of one possessing another. Now they were a total joke to him. A joke. Johnny Leng. That stinking monster. It was true. Willingly. Johnny Leng…