The Skunge (16 page)

"This is what they're here for," Alley says as Legion leads her through a monstrous set of iron doors that groan like a weary giant. Inside, the light of hundreds of phone screens fill the room with an ephemeral glow. The floor is covered in blankets, quilts, duvets, pillows, clothing. Couples, threesomes, foursomes and more lay scattered everywhere, squirming together like exotic new organisms. Moans, whimpers, screams rise up to bounce around the room, reverberating. "Everyone here is fucking. Fucking or fighting or both. Getting a dose of the Skunge."

Alley sets down the camera and adjusts it so it stands up on its own. She begins removing her clothing, exposing a lithe brown body, long, protruding nipples, and a bold triangle of dark hair between her legs. She poses for the camera, showing her body; the camera takes it all in with impersonal lust. Two Skungers come to her, one on each side, a girl and a boy, and she meets each groping embrace like a long-lost lover.

"This is the new generation," Alley says. Her hair has sprung loose from the elastic, and it dances around her face as she smiles like an ancient and beautiful deity. "Tell your friends. Tell everyone." The Skungers paw at her, and sparkling lines of blood appear across the lean muscles of her belly, and more dripping red tiger stripes ladder her tawny thighs. She is a goddess of fertility, war, freedom, love. "Come and join us."

As she falls to the floor under the Skungers, she is a goddess of death.

The shaking started with her hands, then took her whole body. Sugar ran for the bathroom.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

One minute later, the kid entered the kitchen. Behind him, in single file, came Arneson and Sonch. Arneson's big hand was locked on the back of the kid's neck, pushing him forward. Arneson walked him to the edge of the hall entryway. Arneson shook him by the neck, signaling him.

"
Guys
," the kid stage-whispered. At a grunt from Arneson, he cleared his throat and spoke louder. "Rennie! Please don't shoot. They got me, cuz!" The kid blurted words like bubbles of snot. "They're making me do this. Oh God, don't shoot me,
please
."

No response from the hallway. Better than an answer from the shotgun.

They pushed through the bat-wings. A narrow hall, done in more imitation wood. Two doors on the left, one on the right, and a fourth at the far end. According to Rubalcava: three bedrooms, including a master with a king-sized bed. That would be the last door on the right. At the end of the hallway, the bathroom door was open and leaking yellow light. They stopped at the left-hand door.

Nodding at each other, Arneson and Sonch lined up and sling-shotted the kid through the flimsy door. After a second, Sonch screamed and lunged after him, whipping the sword around in flashy, erratic moves, like a badly-choreographed Kung-Fu flick.

"Heee-
yi
! Hi-
yah
!" Sonch danced around the room. The sword flashed down. A bedside lamp exploded in a gout of garish plaster.

"Jesus, watch out with that thing, man!" The kid cried.

Nothing. Dust, a stained mattress on the floor, plastic vials and drifts of trash that crunched underfoot. No closet. A mausoleum of flies on the windowsill.

They stepped out, and approached the next door, the first on the right. Arneson leaned close and listened.

Years ago, he had attended a training session in Reno. The instructor, a tough old dude who sounded like Clint Eastwood and looked like beef jerky, had told them this: your senses will save your life.
The world hates you
, gentlemen, he had said.
Not only does the world not
care
about you, the world is
actively out to get you—but for every trap set, for every snare left in your path, and every predator in the woods, there will be clues
.
Some you can see—unless it's dark. Some you can smell—unless there's smoke in the air. Some you can hear, if you can control your heartbeat and your breathing. If you can't…well, the good news is you won't have to worry about your heartbeat or breathing for long. But if you know how to use your senses the way they are meant to be used, you
will
sense when you are in danger. Breathe. Look. Listen.

Arneson closed his eyes, and opened his senses. From inside the room: nothing, nothing, nothing…there. Fast, hushed breathing. A faint stink of chemicals. Motel room soap. The bitter tang of burnt gunpowder.

"This one's got the shottie."

Sonch's breath puffed in Arneson's ear. "Oh, the
fuck
you know that." But he had worked with him too long to doubt. "Fifty bucks says you're wrong."

"Make it a hundred."

Sonch sighed. "Hell, I should know better. You're always right about this kind of shit." He stabbed a finger back toward the kid, who sat sniveling on the floor of the empty bedroom. "But you go in right after the goober."

"Deal."

The kid squawked when Sonch grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

"Hey!" Arneson shouted. "We're coming in, and we've got…" He cocked an eyebrow at the kid.

"Pedro." Tear-tracks cut lines down the kid's dirty face.

"We've got Pedro out here, and he's coming in hot, face first. You shoot, and his brains go everywhere."

No answer. Arneson shrugged. Together they grabbed Pedro and ran him through the door. He smashed through the particle-board like it was nothing more than movie set-dressing.

An old bed, shrouded in a coverlet that might have been washed back when Reagan got shot. A closet with no doors. A used rubber lay curled in the middle of the floor like a question mark.

Arneson jumped up on to the bed, and Sonch follow a second later. The snout of a shotgun poked from under the bed and exploded. The sound in the tiny room was like the cannons of heaven. Pedro's right leg exploded. Gory loops and snarls painted the bottom half of the wall.

Pedro screamed and dropped to the ground.

"Oh shit, Pedro, I'm sorry, man!" The guy under the bed started wriggling his way out, leading with the shotgun. Sonch waited until he could see the guy's right hand where it clutched the riot grip of the shotgun, then he jumped down and landed on the gun. There was a crunch like a dog biting into a bone as his fingers crushed under Sonch's weight.

"Gotcha, shitheel!" Sonch cried.

There was a slithering bump from down the hall, and Arneson leaped off the bed and charged through the door. The heavyset blond guy thundered out of the master bedroom and down the hallway. H slammed the the bathroom door shut behind him. Arneson followed, smashing through the cheap veneer and skidding to a halt.

The blond guy was backed up against a mini washer-dryer combo, panting for breath. He held a box of laundry soap in front of him like a shield.

"Good luck with that," Arneson said. He pulled up the bottom of his shirt a moment, exposing the butt of his gun, then held his hands up. "You must be Jescoe. So what do you say we settle down and discuss this—"

Jescoe lowered the soap box, snarling, and both men froze. His eyes widened until Arneson thought they would pop out of his head.

"Holy shit," Jescoe said. "I
know
you."

Arneson stared. God-
damnit.

"Yeah, you were at that thing in Texas, that preacher who went bad and killed all those—"

Arneson lunged forward and slammed Jescoe into the washer. It clanged like a bell. He gritted out a whisper. "Shut the fuck up. You don't know me. You've never seen me." He stepped back to the bathroom door and checked for movement. He heard the muffled sound of Sonch remonstrating and the
scritch
of duct tape unspooling. He returned to the laundry room. "Now hit me."

"Oh man, this is bad fucking timing," the guy moaned. Greasy-looking sweat sheened his forehead. "I am
so
close here. Listen, I got to tell you something. The woman, she—"

"I don't care. Fucking
hit me
," Arneson said.

Jescoe thought about it for a second. He looked around a moment, then down at the box of laundry soap in his hands. He grabbed it by the handle, took a long wind-up, and smashed the box across Arneson's jaw. Powdered soap flew like Christmas. Arneson staggered, slamming into the wall as loudly as possible. If you didn't know what to look for, you might almost think it was real. Jescoe took another look at him, then sprinted past, back down the hall to the kitchen.

Arneson staggered out in time to see Sonch staring after the fleeing Jescoe.

"Shit, man! Did you let that guy get away?" Sonch cried. He looked at Arneson and started laughing. "Holy shit! Did he get you good, or what! Sheeee-
it
!"

"He surprised me." There was a thump from the master bedroom. Arneson gestured toward the room containing Pedro and Rennie. "Everything under control in there?"

"They're good. Trussed up like a couple of piggies."

They paused outside of the master bedroom. Arneson turned to whisper to Sonch, but it was too late.

"Hi-
yahhhhh
!" Sonch cried, and kicked in the door. He lunged inside, swinging the sword. Arneson rushed in afterward, scanning, staying clear of the flashing blade. He looked to his right, and his blood cooled. He saw what was about to happen, and he lunged. Sonch brought the sword down, swinging as he turned, the blade catching the dusty light, flashing back a cruel grin of chromed steel, toward—

thunk

The sound of Sonch's sword cleaving into Arneson's forearm was like an ax chopping into a block of wood. Arneson had thrown his arm across the baby bassinet where it sat on the bed.

Arneson grunted with pain. The shock of the strike reverberated up his arm, sending a bolt of livid purple agony into his brain. The blade was stuck, all the way to the bone.

From the bassinet; not a sound.

The pain was excruciating. Arneson breathed, his tongue on the roof of his mouth, willing the pain to recede.

"Christ, that was close." Sonch panted. He yanked his sword out and watched avidly as blood welled up from the gaping wound. "Sorry, bro." Blood pattered serenely down on the puke-green carpeting.

Arneson ripped a pillow off the bed and held it to his arm. "You didn't cut anything major. Check under the—"

The closet doors crashed open and the woman charged, sweaty black hair flying out in a fright-wig, teeth bared in a harridan mask of hate. She smashed into Sonch and both of them crashed to the floor. She was skinny as a fence-slat, face covered with the pitted scars of long-term meth use. She groaned and screeched nonsense, lunging into Sonch, tearing at his face with her teeth and nails.

"Get off me, you bitch!" Sonch, half-laughing, covering his face with his arms, trying to keep her nails out of his eyes. "Arneson, little help?"

Arneson ignored him and stepped to the bassinet. He drew back the blanket.

A real baby. Where they had gotten it was a question he didn't want to ask, or contemplate. It looked peaceful. Pale as soap, and still as a painting. He reached out, and his hand seemed to stretch miles before touching the cold flesh. He had heard stories, of course; rumors, urban legends. The sure-fire way of getting past any checkpoint. He felt something well up in his chest. Not sadness or regret, but a screaming red chord of anger. His hands clenched and unclenched with the need to take the woman's throat in his hands, squeeze until her eyes popped and she choked on blood. Then he would find the men that had committed this abomination, he would hold them down, one by one, force the barrel of his gun into their mouths, make them taste the bullet before it smashed through their brain. He would take pieces off of them, inch by screaming inch, and set their bodies ablaze. He could taste his anger, his need to kill and kill until the wrong had come undone. He had tasted it before.

Arneson breathed. He closed his eyes. The pain in his arm receded by inches.

He dropped the blanket, turned, and pulled the woman off of Sonch. She collapsed to the floor, spitting and snarling like a cat.

"About fuckin' time, man!" Sonch said. He straightened and dusted his clothes theatrically, and bent to retrieve his sword. "This bitch was about to take my eyes out. I probably have scabies or some shit." He leveled the sword at her. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood, chickie-boo, or I'd
fuck
you with this." She glared, panted for breath, and said nothing.

Arneson breathed until the pain was removed from the front of his brain, shunted off somewhere else to be considered at a later time.

Sonch peered into the basket, his face creasing with disgust. He shook his head. "Goddamn, the shit people get up to." He grabbed the woman by her hair and dragged her out the door, back to the kitchen. Arneson followed.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Sugar was convinced she had felt it. Moving inside her, like bugs crawling under her skin. The Skunge had returned, she
knew
it.
Felt
it. She slashed with the razor, peering in the blood like a gypsy soothsayer, pulling apart the lips of the cuts to see inside. Nothing but flesh and the bright curse of blood. She sobbed with relief, blotted at the red stripes, and chugged from the bottle. She was safe from it, here.