Tar: An apocalyptic horror novella (19 page)

“Well, excuse you,” she said, and snickered.

“I’m awfully sorry,” Eddie said. “I’m in a hurry and wasn’t—”

“Aw”—she waved it away—“don’t give it a second thought.”

Eddie offered her a polite smile.

The girl gave him the once-over. “Say, fella. Are you okay? You don’t look so hot.”

“I’m swell,” Eddie said. “Listen, I gotta—”

“You’re white as a sheet. Look like you seen a ghost, or somethin’”

Eddie gaped at her.

“Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed, and Eddie jumped. “I can’t believe I said that—that you look like you seen a ghost. On Halloween!” She brayed with laughter.

Eddie gave an embarrassed glance around at the passersby.

Snow White thrust out her free hand. “I’m Edna.”

He shook with her. “E-Eddie.”

“Hey! Eddie and Edna!”

She was a dish. Just not too bright. Or maybe she’d already been hitting the hooch.

“Well, it’s nice t’ meet you, Eddie. I think we—”

She stopped dead. She stood there, frozen.

“Um… Edna?” Eddie mumbled.

Edna’s frozen smile became a rictus. Her brow wrinkled in confusion, and her eyes rolled away from his as she observed her surroundings as if for the first time. The bag slipped from her grasp and the booze smashed on the concrete after all, filling the air with the sharp smell of whiskey. Edna’s face transformed into a mask of abject misery. Her eyes were filled with tears when they fell on Eddie’s face again. The tears spilled down her cheeks as she stared at him with a horrifying, mournful expression. And in a voice that made Eddie’s blood run cold, she said, “Where am I?” She reached out and seized Eddie’s arms in a claw-like grip. “What is this place?”

Eddie cried out and tore himself away. He fled, leaving her standing there in the middle of the sidewalk.

She screamed after him, “WHERE AM I?”

He said a prayer under his breath, one of many they had taught him to recite as a kid, between beatings from his old man. He could only remember the first part, so he kept repeating it over and over. “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee…”

He had gone a block when he stopped in his tracks, his heart hammering in his chest. Heading toward him was a clown, a guy dressed as Dracula, a hula dancer in a grass skirt and a coconut bra. And a cop. They were all laughing and shooting the breeze and hadn’t yet noticed Eddie. Eddie didn’t know if the copper’s uniform was a Halloween costume, or the real deal. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Beads of sweat popping up on his brow, he looked around for a place to duck into and spotted a bar across the street, with the name Angelo’s above the door.

Eddie crossed Newark Avenue against the flow of traffic, which had become a little backed up. Upon closer inspection, he decided that some of the odd-looking automobiles were in fact quite sleek, if a little unimaginative. As he crossed, there came from somewhere among the vehicles music the likes of which Eddie had never heard or even imagined. You couldn’t even call it music, he thought. What were those hellish instruments? And the “singer” was screaming like he was in pain. Eddie continued across the street, relieved to reached the other side. With a casual glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being hounded by the cop, Eddie slipped into Angelo’s.

The first thing to catch his eye in the low light was the glowing television. At least, that’s what he assumed it must be. He didn’t own one himself, never saw much use in them, though he had seen them around, even nabbed one in a burglary once. But he had never seen a television anywhere like this one. Something inside him cried out in denial because he knew it didn't belong here. Mounted near the ceiling in one corner behind the bar, its huge picture tube (must have been four feet wide!) was alive with color and motion. A football game was on, the picture so vivid that Eddie half expected a player to run out of the box and into the room.

There was a guy at one of the tables who had his own personal television, a slim, flat thing that looked like it was part typewriter. He sat hunched over it, watching what looked to Eddie like a politician giving a speech. And then, to Eddie’s surprise, the guy closed the thing up like a briefcase.

But the sight that bowled him over were the handheld gadgets that a couple of people seemed to use as both tiny televisions and some kind of walkie-talkies.

This is all wrong, Eddie thought. And it’s been wrong since that spooky kid with the newspapers. Maybe even before that. Maybe…

You know when everything went wrong
.

Yeah, he admitted. When I hit the girl. When I hit Margaret.

Think again
.

At first, Eddie didn’t understand. And it pissed him off. Then, he got it. And the answer was so simple.

He sighed. When I ran, Eddie told himself. It all came to pieces when I ran.

Give that man a cigar!

But what Eddie wanted was a belt.

He approached the bar, behind which worked a heavyset man with slicked-back black hair that was going gray around the temples. The guy wore an orange t-shirt with black letters that said WHY CAN’T WITCHES GET PREGNANT? THEIR HUSBANDS HAVE HOLLOW-WEENIES!

“Who’s winning?” Eddie nodded at the television.

“This is a recording. Giants beat the Rams, thirty-one to ten.” He shook his head. “L.A. sucks this season.”

In as steady a voice as he was able, Eddie said, “I thought the Rams played in Cleveland.”

The barkeep looked at Eddie in thoughtful consideration. Then he roared laughter. Two geezers at the other end of the bar glanced their way and then returned to their beer and conversation.

“Maybe they should,” the barkeep said.

Eddie showed him a wooden smile.

“What’ll it be?”

“Scotch, neat.”

“Five bucks.”

With trembling fingers, Eddie fished a fin out of his wallet and slid it across the bar.

The guy set him up and then strolled down the bar to chat with the two geezers. Eddie picked up his drink, swirled it around twice, anticipating the taste, then tossed it back.

Except the liquor didn’t touch his lips. As Eddie looked on, the scotch drained from the glass backward. It receded into the upturned bottom and disappeared. It was as if the glass itself had drunk it.

His hand shaking badly now, Eddie set the glass back down on the bar—and watched it fill from nowhere to its original level again. He shook his head vigorously and lifted the glass again. He raised it to his lips.

The same thing happened as before; the scotch emptied into the glass.

With a frustrated cry, Eddie hurled the glass at the wall behind the bar where it exploded with the sound of a gunshot.

The barkeep yelled, “Hey, what the hell!” He dug one of those handheld gadgets out of his front pocket.

Eddie wasn’t paying attention; he stared up at the television, where the picture had changed. On the screen a Ford Coupe—his Ford Coupe—turned onto Mercer Street. Eddie could just hear Glenn Miller’s “In The Mood” drifting through the open driver’s side window. The camera pulled back, offering a wide view, just as a tiny figure in a red hood and cape stepped off the curb and into the street. The car struck the child’s body like a giant steel fist, sending it flying through the air like a rag doll and—

Eddie turned his back. He’d seen enough. More than enough.

The patrons at the tables were all watching him.

The bartender poked Eddie hard between the shoulder blades. “Hey, you! Get the fuck out of here now! I called the cops.”

Eddie didn't need to hear it twice. He stumbled to the door.

Outside, Margaret Dowling lay in the gutter.

Eddie’s body stiffened in fear so suddenly that his spine popped.

She raised her head, and a ropy length of half-coagulated blood stretched between her crushed skull and the ground. She grinned, and Eddie saw that half her teeth were broken.

“How did it feel?” she asked him. It didn’t sound like a little girl's voice. It sounded old.

A croaking noise rose from Eddie’s throat.

“How did it feel to kill me?” A bit of brain dropped from the hole in her head and plopped onto the curb.

No, Eddie thought. Her voice doesn’t just sound old. It sounds ancient. Wherever she went after dying, she was there for ages.

“How did it feel to stand there? To stand over my dead body and look down at it?”

Eddie tried to reply, tried to say he was sorry, that he’d take it back if he could. But he could only shake his head and stammer.

“HOW DID IT FEEL?”
screamed the thing in the gutter.

Eddie bolted. Behind him, the ghost let loose a hideous wail, one that would have turned the bravest man into a coward, and it turned Eddie’s guts to water. He barely noticed the piss running down his leg as he limp-skipped down the sidewalk, shoving people out of his way. His terror was mindless, and he may have gone on that way forever, or until his leg gave out or his heart burst. But then he saw the priest.

The old man was standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street, the shock of hair on his head as white as his collar. When he saw Eddie coming, his burning blue eyes seemed to get even more intense, as if a flame flared up behind them. A smile played on his lips.

Eddie skidded to a halt in front of the priest, clasping his hands together in supplication. But he dare not quite touch the man, because though Eddie had forsaken religion, years spent having it crammed down his throat had instilled in him a grudging respect for it, and in his heart he felt unworthy. Unclean. “Please, father,” he begged. “Help me.”

“Help you with what, Eddie?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her, father I swear, I mean, I know I did wrong and all, heisting that Coupe, but I never… I never…”

Eddie trailed off. He looked at the priest. Then he said, “How do you know my name?”

The priest smiled, and Eddie saw the devil it. He still felt petrified of the thing that had once been Margaret Dowling, and yet it was dawning on him that he could run, but he couldn’t hide.

“Oh, I know all about you, Eddie.”

Eddie deflated. “So you’re part of…” he shook his head and shrugged, “this… whatever’s happening?”

“Indeed.” The old man’s blue eyes twinkled with that inner light.

Cars whooshed by on the street. On the sidewalk, people flowed past Eddie and the priest like they were two islands in a stream. Eddie barely noticed.

“Am I in hell?”

The priest gave no answer, but there was a knowing gleam in his eyes.

Eddie sighed. “Are you even a real priest?”

“Ha! God, no.” He struck a pose. “This is my Halloween costume, worn especially for the occasion. Not bad, eh?”

Eddie just looked at him.

“Truth be told,” the old man said, “I wear it to draw you to me. Despite your occupation, your catholic upbringing still has a lot of power over you, Eddie. I could approach you, but it’s not as…sporting.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Eddie shouted.

The old man smiled, unruffled. “James and Katherine Dowling were the parents of young Margaret. They were quite well off. Filthy rich, you might say.

“On the night you killed Margaret, the police came close to capturing you. A couple of the residents of Mercer Street got a good look at you and described you. You weren’t hard to track down. They spotted you here on Newark Avenue, and they gave chase. It would have been better for you had they caught you, Eddie. As it was, you ran into the street—and smack in front of a moving bus. It killed you instantly.”

“You’re crazy,” Eddie whispered.

The old man smiled. “Am I?”

Eddie said nothing.

“As I said, the Dowlings were wealthy. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that, over the years, James invested in several companies, leveraging his assets into a powerful empire. Where I’m from, Eddie, the Dowling family are giants.

“One company engaged in DNA research. I know you don’t understand what I mean—not being a scientist, I don’t understand it all, myself—but I’ll explain things as best I can.”

“I don’t want to hear anymore of this,” Eddie said.

“Oh, Eddie,” said the old man, “don’t you know, you have no choice?”

Eddie fell silent. A passing car honked its horn, and he cringed.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. DNA—deoxyribonucleic acid. The carrier of genetic information and the building blocks of life.

“Again, it would have been better for you had the police captured you that night. You'd have done time, and that probably would have been the end of it. But you escaped punishment when you stepped in front of that bus. Some thought it was poetic justice, since you died in the same manner as Margaret. But James and Katherine Dowling disagreed. As did I.

“Which is why we exhumed your bones and regenerated your body. And then placed that body in a suspended state. Oh, it looks nothing like the old you, I’m afraid. Just a gelatinous blob with a brain, floating in a biotic soup. Much of your nourishment comes from your own waste, which you release into the tank and recycle through your body.

“A computer is connected to your brain. It’s used to control your memories and to create this place you see around you. I’m also able to visit you here personally from time to time, though we have to make certain adjustments for that. The program default runs much too fast for me to be here in real time, so you usually just encounter a smart projection of me. The thing is, the computer became self-aware of late and has rewritten the program on its own. That’s why you’re experiencing glimpses of a future you don’t understand. And other anomalies, such as the young woman named Edna. She’s nothing more than a glitch manifested by that self-awareness. At first, we planned to intervene, but I rather enjoy the surprises it springs on you. It keeps things interesting. Yes, I think we’ll give the computer the benefit of the doubt for the foreseeable future.

“To answer your question, Eddie: no, you are not in hell. You’re in prison.”

So there it was.

“You’re saying none of this”—Eddie gestured at everything around them—“is real?”