Everybody Scream! Read online

  Hector grew alert and watched them when they got up and left. He was really shocked at how pretty they were; he had expected this from their shallowness and smugness, but most of them were actually glamorous, could have been models, in tight gray skirts, long hair, ruffled blouses. Heels. Early twenties. Not one of them yet in her uniform. The money had to be good, was the only thing Hector could figure. He had shaken his head with disbelief during their story, but none had noticed him then or noticed him now as they filed out in a cloud of perfume. Hector was filled with a despairing contempt.

  Hector drove his expensive vehicle on autopilot; as a Theta researcher he had made good money. He read the newspaper, a hard copy printed off his car’s computer. It was, as always, an encyclopedia of horrors. On one page alone there was a father who had killed three of his children and wounded one, killed his ex-wife and his brother’s ex-wife and her new boyfriend (he was distraught, poor father, that he had lost a custody battle for the children), another man who had stabbed his wife and sixteen-year-old son to death (there was “blood all over” from the struggle with the poor boy, who was found at the foot of the living room stairs), and a boy being tried for stabbing his grandmother with a knitting needle and beating her to death because she wouldn’t lend him money (he gave his girlfriend some of his grandmother’s rings to wear, sweet boy, as if they were heirlooms passed down to him). A single newspaper page often held even greater horrors, but it was notable that all three of these cases were linked by family violence. The hell of disharmony.

  Hector could scarcely believe that there could still be a population in Punktown with all this violence. To think that one or two towns in this country, Duplam, had even higher percentages of violent crime. Why did he torment himself with the paper? He swore, one day soon he was going to lock himself in his apartment all day, read no papers, and watch no VT but for a children’s channel or carefully selected vids. He would listen only to particular music chips. He’d take a hot bath and read in the tub. He’d keep the shades down all day…

  Junk mail for his ex-wife still occasionally came to his address. She had liked receiving catalogs of sex-oriented merchandise (they had liked sex) and some had been extreme. Hector had gotten one yesterday. One of the more elaborate pieces pictured in the handsome, glossy pages was a kind of bed covered by a cylindrical plastic canopy, with two odd enclosed trays running along either side. Inside individual cells in these transparent trays one could seal bumbles, four on either side of the bed. Bumbles were a popular genetically engineered pet, the size and appearance of a large, floppy-eared rabbit, with alternating bands of black and yellow fur. A tube was inserted into each bumble, and their blood drained. Their panicky convulsions inside the tiny cells was an “additional stimulus,” according to the catalog. Their blood was conveyed to an overhead sprinkler system and rained down on the human lovers in the narrow bed (“or the Scarlet Shower can be enjoyed alone”). It was more a device for people with money, jaded and bored and experimental, and bumbles weren’t cheap either, though any small creature would do. Cats. Plain rabbits could be kept and bred freely for the purpose. But bumbles were so especially cute and colorful and beloved, a fad pet right now.

  Hector had fantasized one day about flicking off the autopilot but still not piloting the car, except to accelerate on some forest-flanked highway late at night with no one else close. But he couldn’t. Not after having remembered crossing over, which he tried not to remember. Hector was afraid to die. He was even afraid to sleep, because dreaming could be like crossing over, and he had dreamed about crossing over and what he had seen, what he had spoken with, and now he took drugs so he didn’t sleep. Five months since he had been put on disability leave, and he hadn’t slept a wink for the past three. The drugs got expensive, and they did strange things to you, and to be constantly awake could be the greatest nightmare, but whenever he was tempted to escape into sleep he grew too afraid.

  Sedatives helped, though mixed with the anti-sleep drug did yet stranger things to his mind and body. Deep narcotic-like drugs were out of the question–the idea of being too lax, too unaware, too dreamy made him shiver. Too much like sleep, like crossing over. The sedatives were prescription, but the powerful anti-sleep drugs he took were illegal. He didn’t have much left, and he had to stock up on them tonight, because he had found out last night that his regular dealer Moband had been killed. This morning over the phone he had arranged to buy them tonight directly from Moband’s source, Roland LaKarnafeaux, who worked at the fair–but this would be its last night and Hector wasn’t sure when or where he’d be able to get them again, so he would bring a lot of money.

  Sophi Kahn wore a loose-fitting, oversized violet sweater with sleeves pushed up her forearms, a gift from last year’s winner of the ribbon for best adult sweater in the craft competitions, very faded and very tight straight-legged jeans, and old white sneakers without socks. Her hair looked scarcely less tousled than it had upon her waking, mostly pushed over to one side, threatening to obscure one eye. A cigarette was like a constant sixth finger in her right hand. She narrowed her eyes up at the ride called the Double Helix.

  Gooch Varvak, a Choom, had the standard Choom bristly short haircut but for one tight braid hanging down to the small of his back, a heavy tool belt slung low over his hips. Little red and yellow lights glowed or flashed on a few of the odd devices in its pouches. His hands grease-stained even at this early hour, Gooch pointed his Styrofoam cup of hot mustard up at the towering skeletal machine.

  “There’s no way I can get it to work tonight without a new crystal board, and nothing I have is compatible except the Whirlpool, and I don’t have a spare for that. So it’s a matter of choice…you can have the Helix disabled, or the Whirlpool.”

  “You can’t run a cable or set up a transmission from the Whirlpool’s board to the Helix, and run them both off one?”

  “You’re right, I can’t. Not without an overload. You’d have to crank the power so low, if you did, that you’d have kids falling asleep on them.”

  “Fuck,” Sophi muttered, glancing elsewhere; dragged on her cigarette. “The Double Helix is one of our best rides, and so it the Whirlpool…but the Helix does better.”

  “So switch?”

  “Yeah, switch. If you get a chance you might as well start packing up the Whirlpool–that’ll give you a head start on tomorrow. It’ll also keep people away from it and asking about it.”

  “Right.”

  “Gooch, yesterday I read in a paper that they dug up some ruins in Baloom and they found sealed clay vases of wine and intact loaves of bread–almost two thousand years old. Two thousand year old bread, and we can’t buy a new crystal board that lasts all summer.”

  “What’s the big deal? My wife makes bread like that.”

  “Next year we buy a spare, whatever the expense.” Sophi began walking away.

  “I’ll teleport one now, if you want!”

  “And pay that for one night’s work?” Sophi kept walking.

  “We’ll still have it around for next year, practically new.”

  Sophi stopped, turned to face her chief mechanic. “Do it, Gooch.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Right on it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Again Sophi walked. She felt rather stupid for not thinking of it first, and she didn’t like to feel stupid about running her carnival. That was Gooch’s department; naturally he should come up with the solution, she tried to tell herself logically on the one hand. On the other, she made it her policy to be harder on herself and expect more of herself than anyone. But her irritation decreased a few conspicuous notches anyway. Distractions, she justified to herself.

  Almost nine o’clock. At ten the gates opened. It was still pretty dead around, considering. Sophi wondered where Del had made off to. She walked past the miniature merry-go-round. Her eyes were drawn to a knocked-over trash barrel. Fucking clean-up kids–probably smoking seaweed behind a ride somewhere…

  A peripheral moveme
nt on her left, she turned her head and gasped. The KeeZee had come out of nowhere. It stood staring at her, down, as she might look upon a child. Its three black marble eyes glistened. Glossy blackish-gray skin almost translucent in thinner areas over the hard bones of the monkey-wrench head. Black hair flowed from the sides and back of the skull. The creature loomed six and a half feet in its black uniform, but was a foot or more shorter than the even more dreaded white-skinned northern KeeZee. It didn’t speak.

  “Thanks for the heart attack,” said Sophi. She knew the names of the two KeeZee security officers but couldn’t tell them apart.

  Now came Mitch Garnet, catching up with his bouncy swagger. “Mornin’, boss-lady.”

  “Just ‘boss’ will do.”

  “You’re not a lady?”

  “Sometimes, when I’m in the mood, but what I mean is there’s no boss-gentleman.”

  “What’s your husband?” Mitch smiled.

  Sophi wasn’t really joking. “An investor and a pain in the anus.” She was trying to remind the security chief that she was the owner and manager and Del had no actual authority, but without seeming insecure about her position. It was a constant problem, and not really Del’s fault because often she did rely on him to help her, but sometimes people consulted Del where they should have consulted her, brought their problems to Del first. Mitch was good for that, too often. It chafed her.

  “Got a body this morning behind the Screamer. Care to see it?”

  “Mitch, have you considered selling admission to the morgue? And you could be the barker. I’ll even buy you a ringmaster’s top hat.”

  “You’d make good money.” Garnet didn’t take offense, although Sophi was in reality criticizing him–she always had this sarcastic humor.

  “I’d rather you just tell me what happened; I have a good imagination.”

  “A teenage girl, no I.D., her face totally caved in from a heavy intake of purple vortex and probably some other shit.”

  “Great.”

  “I asked your husband if I could run the fat man out but he said no, it’s just one more night. But another kid or two could die tonight. And those fucking Martians that come around here make me edgy–that situation could always explode.”

  “A lot of situations could explode. You know you can get buttons from the guy who runs the corn dog stand? And iodine from about half the other shops?” She was exaggerating. “You can get anything here. They make good money on the kids. What can we do? If I really screened, if I ran a clean shop, a great portion of our crowd would be a lot less inclined to show. It’s their choice, Mitch. I choose not to sniff vortex, but if some teenage nit-wit wants to cave in her face that’s her choice in life. She’d do it elsewhere. How bad can I feel? You have to be a realist, ugly as it may seem.”

  “She didn’t choose to cave in her face, Mrs. Kahn.”

  “She chose the road that led to the caving in of her face, Mr. Garnet. And call me Sophi, please, like I’ve told you–I’m getting tired of being Mrs. Del Kahn, like I’m just the female extension of him or something.”

  Now Mitch began to feel offended, as much as his gratitude and loyalty allowed. “With all respects to you and your husband, Mr. Kahn hasn’t been too famous these past few years. I don’t think anybody around here sees you as being just Mrs. Del Kahn. If anything, I think sometimes he’s seen as being Mr. Sophi Kahn.”

  “Whatever, Mitch. Just try to I.D. that girl, alright?”

  “Right.” Mitch turned away, rather less buoyant than when he’d approached. The KeeZee lingered a moment, jagged jaws parted a few inches, gazing down at her; it hadn’t once moved.

  “Dismissed, handsome,” Sophi told it, a little uneasy.

  Mitch gave a whistle. The giant then pivoted to follow him.

  Sophi walked in the opposite direction. She was fairly bristling now. Nerves, she told herself, flicking away her dwindled cigarette. Last night; an uncertain, long cold season ahead. Without a trip down south to look forward to, autumn and winter and much of spring united into one chill fog in her mind. There would always be work to tend to, but that was still a lot of time. Maybe she’d steal a week or two to catch up with that portion of the carnival which would split down south, just for a break from the staleness. No doubt Del would make the best of that situation, she joked to herself sarcastically.

  Sophi lit a fresh cigarette.

  Bonnie rode her sporty hovercar on autopilot, her parents, making good money, were able to afford such a high school graduation present. She had clothes on finally, but the convertible top was retracted and she and Noelle rode with the naked freedom of the open air flowing over them, laughing, blasting the hovercar’s chip player over the whoosh of the wind.

  They hadn’t really planned to embark this early–they couldn’t even remember if the fair opened at ten or eleven, and it was only ten now–but Noelle had been restless about remaining at school, anxious to get away. Although Bonnie had asked if Kid were the cause for this and Noelle had moodily evaded the issue, Noelle was in good spirits now, freshly showered and dressed and in the rushing air. She barked laughter at Bonnie’s words.

  “I can’t believe I’m up and out at ten on the weekend!” shouted Bonnie. “It must be because I didn’t blast anybody last night…and ask me to explain that on a weekend, girl!”

  “Why, I can scarcely believe it myself, of you!” giggled Noelle. “Do you think the guys will show or get sidetracked?”

  “I hope they don’t, really. We can see them anytime. We might meet some sweet meat. Have ourselves a treat to eat.”

  “Neat.” They both laughed heartily. Noelle turned her head to watch a building go by, brushing her lashing hair back with her arm. Her mood visibly transmuted. “I hope Kid doesn’t try showing up.”

  “He probably will, the little worm. Can’t you ever blow that moron off? He’s as persistent as an STD. Get somebody to beat him up or something. I can arrange it for ya.”

  “It’ll take time. He’ll go away.”

  “Stools, girl. Not so long as you’re still opening up your legs for him. You’ve gotta be cold.”

  “I feel sorry for him.”

  “I feel sorry for mutants but I’d blow their brains out if they put a hand on me.”

  Noelle wondered how much more strongly her roommate would disapprove of her ex-boyfriend if she knew he was really a Choom who had undergone cosmetic surgery to appear human, and had successfully kept this secret from Noelle for a long time. She hadn’t dared to tell any of her new college friends for fear of looking duped, stupid, freakish. Everyone at school, particularly the worldly upperclassmen, seemed so chic, so sophisticated, so in control. It was an exciting, but intimidating, sea to swim out into gracefully.

  “Oh, look at these winners, speaking of freaks,” sneered Bonnie. A long white battered hovercar with a scorch-edged ray hole blasted in the passenger door was nosing up alongside their car in the left lane. The windows were open and three young Hispanic men were crowding out their faces and a few arms. One face made puckered air kisses, the other two called out to Bonnie and Noelle. Bonnie had already hit the button to close the convertible top, causing the boys to shout more loudly, gesture more emphatically. “This car has everything but what I need most–a rocket launcher,” Bonnie observed. She might have sworn over at them except that only this summer a car of kids had pulled alongside her on the highway and sprayed her vehicle with bullets, laughing. Luckily she had had time to raise her windows (Noelle had said they probably allowed her this, meaning to frighten and tease rather than kill); fortunately the car was bulletproof.

  “Ignore them, they’ll get tired of it,” Noelle said.

  “Check this, you obnoxious fucks.” Bonnie dabbed more buttons, and every one of her windows tinted itself an impenetrable black…even the front, lest they pull ahead of them to leer out their rear window. Noelle laughed again. Bonnie turned up the volume on her chip player. There. Now even if the car was strafed with bullets they would barely kn
ow or care. “You can’t ignore losers like that when they harass you–you have to take decisive action,” said Bonnie. “Hint, hint, hint.”

  “You’re so subtle, Bonnie.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “They can still follow us.”

  “Then I’ll deal with it. I mean it–you have to shut the door all the way, block him right out of your sight and your life. Don’t chain yourself to a rotting corpse, girl. You have to have some pride and self-respect.”

  “I have to have a heart, too.”

  “God…I’d like to strangle whatever aborigine it was who decided that an organ in our chests pumps love instead of blood. Blood will keep you alive when love won’t.”

  “You’re on a poetic roll, aren’t you?” said Noelle, subdued again.

  “Yeah, you want some more? The organ you need isn’t a heart, and it pumps something other than blood. You’ve got to realize that there isn’t just one of these in the universe. He’s still got you pinned on his prick, honey. Get another one in you; it’s the best cure, I can’t say it enough.”

  “What about Jackybuns?” Noelle replied, defensive.

  “A good start, but not enough. It shows you have the spirit. Free it.”

  Noelle wondered what Kid might have done had he known that at a party shortly before they split, during their rocky final days, she had gotten very drunk and fellated her friend Jackybuns, whom Kid hated and had always insisted had a more than platonic interest in her. They had begun by kissing and he had freed her small breasts to squeeze and suck them, but the knocking on the bathroom door had grown too insistent and they hadn’t gotten further than her briefly performing oral sex on him. Jackybuns had haunted her for a short while afterwards like Kid was doing now, but without the intense bitterness. Kid suspected that she’d had other lovers, accused her of it, but it