The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron (41 page)

He scrambled out stiff legged and caught Missy in his arms, almost tripping before he set her on the ground. No one else in sight, but the voices came again, close, only from behind the train. He rolled under an old coaler on the next track, Missy dodging ahead than looking back. Circulation was returning in his lower half, and quick as he could he cut across two more parked freights. Let the Riders check the train he rode in on first. One more train traversed and they reached the edge of the yard. A dismal section of town extended before them.

Whatever the station, Hattiesburg or Meridian or who knew where, the stop came near the obligatory industrial park. Factories, warehouses, a few wholesale operations. Yet Dumont saw no activity. Was it Sunday? He’d lost track of days. Or had the shit economy stifled enterprise here? No matter. He’d have to hoof it through this part of town till he came out on a residential or commercial zone. Then he could make his way to an intersection and hitch to the next big town or city, find a hop out on a line the Riders hadn’t infested. Mobile seemed like a good destination. Someplace he and Missy could maybe sleep on the beach.

He figured 10 blocks at most till he came out in a more congenial neighborhood but he had to hurry
’
cause he had to take a dump now. He needed a convenience store or a library, someplace with an open restroom but where they wouldn’t call the cops.

He made his best guess as to where the long buildings gave way and struck crosswise toward what he thought might be north. Missy’s nails clicked on the pavement behind him. He needed to clip her, that was overdue. But not right now. Not today.

Something struck him funny about the factories and warehouses in this district. They were the usual colors, gray and brown, white and blue. But their paint seemed more washed out faded than those he’d seen elsewhere. And the signs… the letters on some swam in his vision, impossible to read. Did he have a concussion? But he hadn’t taken a hit on the head. Could blood loss cause this all alone?

The few he could read made little sense.
Tortoise Stapling
.
Kabinet el Sand
.
Plumb Coriolism
.
Carpenter Carpenter
… The address numbers on the buildings were lost on him altogether. Each time he tried to focus on a sign either it or his vision shifted to one side so he found himself staring at blank wall.

He saw no workers. Few cars in the lots, and none on the roads. No traffic at all. No trees, no grass. Just pavement, asphalt roads and concrete walks, flat tarry tendrils patching networks of cracks. Sky overcast gray. No wind. No birds. No sound. Some of these buildings shoulda hummed. Buzzed. But nuthin. Obvious Missy disliked the whole area. She stuck close to Dumont, sniffing the ground, her ears down and tense.

The humped cracked sidewalk led him past one building with glass front doors hanging open. All he could make out of its name was
AZOTY
. There seemed to be more letters but the rest defied his vision, their rusted outlines blurred and swimming. Missy stopped, lifted her leg in that halfhearted girl dog way she sometimes did and let loose on something. Possibly a fire hydrant, possibly a tree stump. Whichever, it was painted white. Or gray. He knew he had to let it out soon too.

Dumont peered inside the open doors and saw no receptionist’s desk, only a wide empty room. Further down the opposite wall he saw the windowless cabin of a probable restroom. One, two steps inside yet still no workers. To his left the manufacturing floor stretched to an uncertain horizon, bare but for a few shrouded hulks in the middle distance, tarp-covered machinery of unknown function. No one was visible. No activity. Why not? He scuttled all the way in, made his way to what he thought was the men’s room. Both the lettering and the icon were uncertain to his eyes, but the simplified woman in a dress on the opposite door showed clear so he knew he had the men’s by process of elimination…

He wanted to get in and out quick so he whistled Missy along in case any workers arrived. The things she’d seen for lack of space…

Inside all was normal, even clean. Until he opened the only stall and looked in the commode. Though no foul splatter marked its rim or lid a burnt orange haze hung still within, at its center a denser clot, sunk and obscured. The murk was the hue of blood diffused in water, the clot some unseen discarded hunk of flesh or gland. Dumont had his zipper half down when something splashed and the water in the toilet rippled as if whatever was hidden beneath the diffused blood within got restless of a sudden. Oh
fuck
this! Dumont staggered out of the restroom in reverse yanking up his zipper as he went, and Missy followed close, growling but not barking yet. He’d shit in an alley if he had to, if he could find a safe one. Wouldn’t be the first time. He’d shit in all kinds of crazy places and was not picky but shitting on whatever was in that toilet was not in the plan. He would have to hold it, clench his bowels till the next opportunity.

The long floor remained empty. Still no workers. He shuffled toward the front doors, Missy hugging his thigh. She knew something was off with the place same as he did. Strange thing though, she wasn’t sniffing. There were always smells.

Outside things were even stranger now. Not only the signs but the buildings themselves seemed ill defined, their shapes distorted, lines gone off plumb, sides and facades fuzzed and blurred as if through TV interference. The lump Missy pissed on before, hydrant or stump, nothing but a fizzing gray puddle now. As he and Missy passed it the mass oozed flat viscous tendrils toward them, impossibilities they had to dodge. Dumont cursed softly as they hurried along their path back to the yard.

Missy meanwhile whimpered and hugged his leg, sleek flank pressing against his calf. The structures around them lost definition and stretched like taffy, flattened in the air. Had he really lost enough blood to cause these distortions? Or had Marlo dipped his K-Bar in some hallucinogenic poison only kicking in now. Not like shrooms or acid or even K. Real ugly stuff. But Missy wasn’t cut and she was seeing something wrong too, same as back at the squat. She bit Ratch though—could his blood have dosed her?

He backtracked best he could. Back to the yard to try for another hop out. This town was major fucked up. He hoped the yard wasn’t fading into static too. He hoped they could make it back before it did. He hoped he wasn’t dying or going insane.

Even the sidewalk felt wrong beneath his feet, giving softly as if cut from tough rubber. The clicks of Missy’s nails were muffled. Around him the buildings shifted into forms he could no longer pick out yet he pressed on in the direction he thought took him back.

What was left of his luck held and the yard reappeared, if not quite where he remembered. The trains were still trains though veiled in a vague gray shimmer. Then another break came his way. One of the freights had begun to roll, slow.

The last half dozen cars were all coalers, no good for riders unless already filled. They’d cover your clothes and flesh with black dust, make you cough and burn your eyes, but worst of all was if they got filled while you were inside. Then you got crushed and buried. Behind the coalers though was another engine facing back. Empty engines were excellent rides. This one was a blue and yellow CSX, what they called the
Dark Future
paint scheme. What coked up corporate dickhead came up with a name like that?

Bald Jonny Ben taught him early on the basic rule for hopping freights on the fly. If you could count the nuts on a turning hub, you were good. He could.

He cut across the yard, paced the engine’s inching crawl. First he raised the guitar and slid it onto the unit’s outer catwalk. He hefted Missy up the first stair next, cut left arm protesting, and she scrabbled up the rest on her own. With his right he pulled himself up the rail to the little walkway and yanked on the door, yellow with a bold blue C dead center. It was like cracking the hatch on a ship. He watched Missy perk up as the warmth of the heated cab wafted out. She slipped around him to get inside where she turned and looked back, wagging her tail and waiting for him to join her. He swept up the guitar by its neck and ducked in after her.

Inside the engine were leather seats. A little fridge. And a
restroom
, oh thank you Jesus!

He took care of the most important business first then shut the door so Missy wouldn’t try to drink from the squat chemical toilet. They still needed water though. Both of them.

He tried the miniature metal fountain but nuthin. Out of order no doubt. He checked the fridge, Missy peering in hopefully beside him, but they found no food, only five pint water bottles. He took two out and closed the door. Missy stared up at him in expectation. With his left forearm he pressed one bottle against his side while he used both hands to unscrew the lid from the other. Missy wagged tail and tongue together. —You want some water, don’t you girl? Problem was the dinged up little aluminum bowl he carried for her was lost like so much else with his pack.

Fuck it. He tipped the water bottle slowly above her nose. She craned her neck and lapped at the water as it dribbled down. Over half dripped onto the floor. He tilted the bottle up again and after an expectant moment Missy bent to lick the water from the floor. He hated for her to have to do it this way, but better than the toilet. Three rounds of this left the bottle drained and the floor almost dry. He drew the second bottle from beneath his arm and drank.

Dumont knew to take it slow. He’d eaten nothing for over a day and now he felt the chill water settle in his empty stomach. It hurt at first, a dull cramping ache in the depths of his abdomen. He spasmed, bent over, pressed his right forearm into his guts, but didn’t puke. The pain faded in increments and once it was mostly gone he sank back into the right hand engineer’s seat, cradled the half empty bottle at his crotch. Sleep took him quick though it did not hold him well.

He rose and fell from the depths of his rest on and off for hours, Missy curled and sleeping at his feet. Dreams visited him, vivid and important, but he remembered none on the waking side. Outside the windows day grew dim again in time as a divided forest receded in his sight.

He went to the fridge and got another water bottle for Missy, poured it out as before and drank the fourth himself. Stuffed the fifth and final in a pocket of his jacket. He knew he could no longer put off inspecting his cut—but what was he gonna do for it anyway? He had nothing to sew it up with and only their last pint of water to clean it. Maybe he could drain it if he had to at least.

Slowly he unwrapped the blood crusted bandanna he wore around it. He expected the cloth to stick, to cling, to pull painfully at his flesh, but it came off easy. The wound beneath was like nothing he’d seen, not the expected narrow cañon of maroon surrounding a canal of pus, but a charcoal swath of desiccated black.

Puffs of dust rose up from the cut and he whiffed the same bitter undercurrent he caught at the squat, initial herald of the Riders’ approach. Probably he needed this slice seen to and soon… which meant he was gonna have to tough it out. The idea of doctors was a joke in his world. Nuthin else for it now so he wrapped the bandana back around. It didn’t hurt all that bad anymore. Kind of numb around the cut, the numbness maybe spreading, but he was gonna be all right. He’d find some iodine, figure something out.

Dumont settled again into the engineer’s chair. If all he did today on this ride was snooze his time would be well spent. He wished for some whiskey… but if he wished in one hand and shit in the other he knew which would fill up first. His foster father used to say that, and who ever gave Dumont more shit than him? Damn those Shadow Riders, takin’ his fuckin’ whiskey… farther this train carried him away from them the more he liked it. He slipped back into sleep until…

Missy tugged his right hand with her teeth, her grip nowhere near so soft as their normal play. He cursed then saw how she sought to drag him toward the short stair back down to the hatch. And saw now what she must’ve heard. Someone turning the door handle. Could it be one of the Riders? No way they could’ve tracked him here, not this time. Probably bulls. But the train was moving, far from any yard. Bulls stayed each in their own yard, checked the trains there. So couldn’t be bulls then. Couldn’t be good, whoever it was.

Whoever wanted to open the door was doing it with painstaking slowness, which meant they knew he was in there. Probably saw him through the windows, asleep in the chair. Dumont tried to rise but his arms had gone to tingling jelly, effect of poor circulation and his position in the seat. He leapt to shaky feet, wobbling, unsteady, flapping his arms to get the blood back in them fast. The door latch opened with a muffled click. Without further thought he dove down the stairs toward the door itself right as it began to ease open, leading with his left shoulder. He stumbled on the steps but traded equilibrium for momentum, slammed the part open door hard and into whoever was outside. He felt first metal crack against skull then connect with padded flesh as the door flung the other back onto the railing and Dumont tumbled out on top.

Dumont shoved himself away from the hulking figure on the catwalk. He saw black leather a pale blocky head and gray fuzz for hair. Ratch. And he recognized the jagged C on the shoulder of Ratch’s jacket as
the same sign on the Crew Change what the fuck?
Ratch caught the cold steel rail with his right hand to keep from going over. Dumont drove forward kicked the Rider hard in the crotch with booted foot while he was still off balance then struck twice again quickly at Ratch’s hand on the rail. The Shadow Rider gasped a muffled —
Fuck
and sought to pull back but he had nowhere to go. Dumont kept a loose grip on the flapping hatch door with his numb left hand as he kicked Ratch in the shoulder the ribs the side of his head. Dumont knew he had only this moment’s advantage and had to press it, his leg pumping at the knee aiming striking in vicious reflex. He could no way let Ratch draw in, grapple with him, drag him down on the catwalk or back into the cab. The guy was a fuckin’ tank. His only hope was to finish it here, now. Most of all if Marlo or any others were coming. He had no chance if he had to take on more than one. Adrenalin powered his attack.