Текст книги "Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys"
Автор книги: Gary A. Braunbeck
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 31 страниц)
“In what way?”
She thought about this for a minute, and as she did, I caught a glimpse of the young girl she’d once been, one who was now searching for a way to express in words something for which her previous life-experience had given her no point of reference. She looked almost…innocent. If I’d been a couple of decades younger, the look on her face would have really turned me on; now it just me feel sad and old.
Finally she said: “You ever wake up from a dream in the middle of the night and for a couple of seconds you’re, like, not sure whether you’re awake in your own bed or still in the dream? Some parts of the dream are so fresh in your memory that you can still see them, and for a couple of seconds it’s like the dream and the real world are the same thing, only you can’t tell which is which? Like you’re looking at a double-exposed photograph. Does that make sense?”
I nodded. “Sure does.”
“Well, if you leave this room on your own, that’s what everything’s going to seem like to you. You won’t be able to tell what’s real and what isn’t.”
“Why is that?”
“Because part of what holds this all together is everyone being here and doing their jobs, living their lives. But when the Highway People call for a gathering and everyone leaves their posts, there’s, like, no glue, right? Things start to…come apart, change, whatever. But when we come back, it all snaps back into place. That’s because we know what it’s all supposed to be like. You don’t, so everything would look real screwed-up to you, and you’d get lost in a hurry, and I don’t think we could find you again.”
I looked around the holding room. “Is that why this room is so bare? So it would be easy for me to remember what it looked like?”
“Yeah. We move around a lot—the town, I mean—and we move pretty fast. Fast like” —she snapped her fingers– “that. So it’s important that you stay here in this room you know so you don’t get lost in the empty places.” She gave me a sweet, slightly melancholy look, blew me another kiss, and left.
I expected her to lock the door behind her to make sure I’d stay right where I was supposed to, but she didn’t. She trusted me. Not that it mattered; I couldn’t have found my way out of town on my own. I could maybe get myself as far as the gas station, but that’d be about it.
So I finished Nova’s superb dinner, sat back in my chair, and stared at the phone, wondering who I knew who wouldn’t hang up on me for calling at this hour. Maybe Brennert, but what could I tell him? Barbara Greer might not get too upset, but if she were being watched, a call from me would only draw more attention to her.
I sat forward and picked up the receiver to see if there was an operator waiting at the other end. I listened to the ringing, still having no idea who I was going to call if and when the operator answered. In the middle of the third ring the call was answered, but instead of an operator I got a moment of hiss, followed by a recorded voice-mail introduction:
“Hi, this is Dianne. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave a message…oh, you know the rest. You’ll have three minutes after the beep, so don’t feel like you have to talk really fast. I hate that, don’t you? Okay, thanks for calling.”
This was the first time in five years that I’d heard her voice, and it almost broke me in half; clear and musical, with a subtle South Carolina accent that caused her to end every sentence on a smoothly descending note of embarrassed laughter that snuggled down in the back of her throat and wrapped itself up in something like a purr…I could almost feel her voice with my fingertips. In those few seconds it took to listen to her message, all those parts of her that I’d purposefully chipped away bit by bit in an effort to make her just another memory came together again, and there she was: her smile, her laugh, her eyes, the smell of her in the morning, the scent of her shampoo lingering on the pillow long after she’d lifted her head, the ghost of her touch against the back of my hand, and before I could even release the breath I didn’t know I was holding, the empty space in my life that had once been filled by her hummed so intensely with her absence that the last half-decade of my existence suddenly seemed inane and empty, a prolonged delusion, a vaudeville of what a life was supposed to be.
God, how I’d missed her.
Then came the beep and I began talking.
“Hi, Dianne, it’s, uh…it’s me.”
And then it hit me: I had less than three minutes. What the hell do you say to someone under these circumstances when you’ve only got three minutes, and it might very well be the last time you ever have the chance to say anything to them? For a second I flashed upon a high school drama club production of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology that I’d been in; the director had explained to us that we needed to approach each of the monologues as that character’s only chance to come back from the grave and say all the things they wished they’d said to everyone while they were still alive. “Their only shot at finally making things right,” she’d told us.
So, I thought, just pretend you’re a dead man back for a few moments from the grave. Got it? Good. Places…
“Please don’t skip over or erase this. I don’t have a lot of time. Listen to my voice. I’m not drunk, okay? What I am is in a lot of trouble, and I don’t know if I’m going to be…ah, hell, Dianne. I never stopped loving you, and I’ve never stopped missing you. I was a jerk—no, wait, that’s not quite right, is it? I was cruel and selfish and cold, and I’ve never forgiven myself for it. Don’t worry, I’m not about to ask for your forgiveness, though I’d bet you would forgive me if I asked. You were always so compassionate, and thoughtful, everything any man who had the brains God gave an ice cube would want or hope for. But me? I blew it. And I want you to know how sorry I am. I hope that whoever you’re with now treats you with all the respect and affection you should have gotten from me.
“You told me after the divorce hearing that you figured I’d go on and live my life like you’d never been a part of it. I tried. And it worked for about a week. Then one morning I got up and started making my lunch for the day and realized halfway through that I was packing yours, as well, like I used to some days, remember? I’m standing there in the middle of kitchen looking at a tuna fish sandwich and wondering if I used enough mayo—you still like lots of mayo on your tuna fish?—anyway, I’m standing there with this goddamn sandwich and realize that you’re not going to be eating it, and I started…well, I kinda lost it, and I hugged the sandwich to my chest and squashed it all the hell over my shirt…it was one of those mawkish moments that always used to make you laugh when you saw them in a movie. It was really pitiful.” I looked at the clock; I had less than a minute.
“I want you to know something, Dianne. You were the love of my life—you are the love of my life, and whatever happens tonight, even if I never see or hear from you again, my soul was blessed because you were once a part of my life, and even though I didn’t treasure it at the time like I should have, I treasure it now, and wish to God I’d have the chance to treasure it—to treasure you—again. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Just know that everything you did, all you tried to give to me, all of it mattered, all of it. And whatever happens after I hang up, if this is it, I want you to know that my last thought will be of you and how you made my world rich, even if I was too much of an idiot to appreciate it at the time.
“I love you. I always will. I just…I just wanted to thank you for all you gave to me when we were together.
“And it just occurred to me that all of this must sound melodramatic as hell, and I’m sorry. It’s been an…odd couple of days. But it’s almost over now. I love you. Be happy, and never let yourself think that any part of what happened was because of you. You were wonderful—shit, you were perfect. I was an asshole. I didn’t deserve you. This isn’t self-pity, hon, it’s just plain old regret. Six of one, half-dozen of the other, I know.
“Good-bye, Dianne. I love you. Think about using a little less mayo in the tuna fish, okay? I hear it’s not good for the cholesterol. You may quote me.” The beep sounded again, I hung up, covered my eyes with my hands, and wept quietly for a minute or two. The lights flickered and I looked up just as Ciera opened the door. “It’s time.” She stared at me. “Are you okay?” Wiping my eyes, I shook my head, then said, “Just ducky, thanks.”
“Nobody wants you to get hurt, Driver.” “So I keep hearing.” I wiped my eyes once again, let out a breath, and rose. We stared at each other for a moment. “So?” I asked. “I take three giant steps, or what?” “I wish you wouldn’t be so mean to me.” “I didn’t think I was.”
She glanced down at the floor for a second, then back up at me. There was some genuine hurt in that gaze. “I keep trying to be nice, but you act like you don’t like me very much.”
“Like you? I don’t even know you. Until a few hours ago, I had no idea you or anyone else in this place even existed! All I knew was that I was supposed to deliver a body so the family could bury it, that’s all. Now, suddenly, I’m right smack in the middle of something pretty seriously goddamn scary, I might be dead before the sun rises, and you’re getting defensive about my bad manners?”
Her eyes began tearing up. “Please don’t yell at me.”
“What the fuck would you do if you were in my position?”
“Please stop yelling.”
I opened my mouth to really let her have it, then her words—Please stop yelling—echoed back, only this time it was Dianne’s voice I heard speaking them, as it had so many time during the course of our marriage whenever I had been made aware of my shortcomings and was looking for someone to blame, usually her.
Please stop yelling. Oh, hon…. “I’m sorry,” I said to Ciera, stepping forward and putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just…mad.” “Okay,” she said, not meeting my gaze. “Hey?” She looked up at me.
“What’s your name—your real name?”
A single tear slipped from her eye and slid a slow path down her cheek. “I don’t remember.”
“Really?”
“Really. Only Road mama and Daddy Bliss remember their real names. The rest of us, we kinda…don’t bring them with us when we come back.” “How old were you?” “I would have been twenty-one on my birthday.” “Christ…I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault. I really like you, Driver. It’s been a long time since…well, since a new guy’s been here who’s still got all of his face and stuff.” She shrugged. “I get lonely sometimes.”
I touched her face, using my thumb to wipe away the tear. “How bad is it, being trapped here?”
She stared at me for a moment, blinked, then gave her head the slightest shake. “I’m not trapped her. None of us are.”
“You stay here by choice?”
“Yes. Everyone here is given that choice. The Highway People bring them back, and if you choose to stay, then your Repairs begin.”
I really couldn’t get my head wrapped around this one. “But…for God’s sake, why would you choose to stay here and take part in all of this?”
“The people we leave behind. If we choose to stay, they are protected. I mean, it’s not like it can be all the people we leave behind, but our immediate family and closest friends, they’re okay.”
“Their numbers are withdrawn from the order?”
“If they have a number, yes. If, like, my sister didn’t have a number—and she didn’t—then I got to pick an extra friend.”
“How long do you have to stay here?”
“Until the people we pick die of natural causes, or however it is they do die. Just not by the Road. Once they’ve all passed on, then we can follow them.”
I tried doing a little arithmetic in my head—if you picked five people, and the youngest was only twelve, then how long…?—then realized it was pointless. She was talking about a long time, no matter how you looked at it. “Can I ask you stupid question?” She smiled. “You can ask me anything. I won’t think it’s stupid.” “How do you get by on a day-to-day basis? How do you stay sane?”
She thought about this for a moment, and then shrugged. “Like everybody else does, I suppose. You go to work when you’re supposed to, you do your job, then you go home, eat dinner, maybe watch some TV or put in a movie. Hang out with friends. Y’know…normal stuff.” “Watch TV or movies?” “Uh-huh.” “Hang out with friends?” “Uh-huh…?” “I guess I’m asking…what do you do for fun? What do you do to relax?” “I like to take walks.” For a moment I thought she was joking, then just as quickly realized she wasn’t. She took hold of my hand, leaned up, and kissed my cheek. “We really need to get going.”
“Ciera, please, please tell me what’s going to happen.” “I can’t. I could get into a lot of trouble if…” She broke off, stared at me, and smiled. “Let me ask you something, okay?” “Okay…?” “Am I prettier than Dianne?”
No way was I going to lie to her—she was the closest thing to an ally that I had (and something told me she’d know instantly if I tried bullshitting her)—but maybe I could respond without actually answering the question.
I touched her cheek and said, “I think you’re beautiful.”
“Thank you. You’re going to race Fairlane.”
I remembered Daddy Bliss’s words from earlier—Some of us have been able to be Repaired almost immediately, while others—like myself and Fairlane, who you’ll be meeting later on—have to make due with more…primitive results—and felt myself shudder. If Fairlane had to make do with results even worse than Daddy Bliss’s, I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet him at all…so sayeth the King of Understatement. “A race?” She nodded. “The Road decided long ago that a race was the most direct and just way to settle a matter.” “What happens if I win?” She almost giggled. “Silly—you get to leave and go home.” “And if I lose?”
She stared at me for a moment, and then threw her arms around my neck and planted a kiss on me that would have killed a kid half my age; as it was, it left me weak in the knees.
“Then,” she said, “you and I can be together.”
So it was that simple; win, and I could leave; lose, and here I’d remain. It seemed almost too simple, but at the time I didn’t dwell on it. I was only interested in getting the hell out. In one piece, if possible.
She took hold of my hand and led me from the holding room, through the offices, and to the front doors. I looked out the windows and saw a long, dark limousine parked at the curb, engine purring. Ciera opened the door and out we went. As we neared the limo I saw, at last, how it was that Sheriff Hummer’s car was able to drive itself; a deep groove ran all along the center of both street lanes: the whole city was built on a gigantic HO track.
Ciera opened the back door of the limo and held my hand until I was seated inside.
“This is as far as I go,” she said. “I have to do a couple of things to get ready, but don’t worry, I’ll see you there in a few minutes.” She started to let go of my hand and I did something that surprised both of us: I tightened my grip and put my free hand on top of hers. “What is it?” she asked. “I…I don’t want to…let go just yet.” She gave me a tender smile and nodded her head. “I can hang for a minute.” “Good.”
I sat there trying to steady both my breathing and the beating of my heart. Ciera neither moved nor spoke, just kept hold of my hand until I was ready to let go. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re welcome. Tell you something weird—I kinda hope you win, but I also hope you don’t, you know?” An idea came to me. “You could come with me.”
“What?”
“You and me. We get the meat wagon and hightail it out of here.”
She pulled in a breath, held it, then released it with a soft little moan as she leaned in and kissed me again. “Do you have any idea how tempting that is?”
I sure hoped so. Shame on me.
“But you know I can’t. I couldn’t do that to my family and friends. But thank you for asking.” She pulled her hand from my grip and closed the door, which locked automatically.
The limo pulled away, and I looked through the back window, watching her stand there in the street until the car turned a corner and she was gone.
Strange as it might sound, I missed her.
I looked up front to see that the divider window was up; it was tinted, so I couldn’t make out anything about the person driving. I looked around until I found the intercom button, pressed it, and said: “Can you lower the window, please?”
There was a soft click, followed by a low, steady hum, and the window glided downward. There was no one driving. I should have known.
There was, however, a small television mounted on the dashboard, and as the window finished lowering, the screen flickered to life and I was looking at Daddy Bliss’s face.
“This is a pre-recorded message, Driver, so please don’t do anything so pointless and predictable as talking back to the screen. They lock people up for that sort of behavior.
“I’m fairly certain that you’ve by now managed to charm some information from our dear Ciera—I was, in fact, counting on it. So let’s proceed on that assumption, shall we?
“You are being driven to the only stretch of road in our fair metropolis that is smooth blacktop from beginning to end. A three-mile straightaway that my children long ago named ‘Daddy’s Dead Run’. A bit over-the-top, I know, but their hearts were in the right place and I’ve never been able to bring myself to tell them that I think it’s a silly, melodramatic name, but what is one to do?
“Once this limousine—and isn’t it a lovely vehicle? You should help yourself to some snacks and the wet bar, both are well-stocked. Now, where was I? Ah, yes.
“Once this limousine comes to a stop, you will be taken to your vehicle for this evening’s contest. You will be driving a car that I personally chose for you. I call it ‘The Ogre.’ Yes, I know—I have the gall to make fun of ‘Daddy’s Dead Run’ and then name a car ‘The Ogre’? It’s the little contradictions in one’s character that makes one fascinating to others. An enigma, so to speak.
“‘The Ogre’ was a1964 Triumph Spitfire in its previous life. Allow me to gloat a bit of its history—after all, I designed and supervised its metamorphosis myself, so I think I’ve earned the right to boast.
“I began with a Spitfire frame that was made ready for a Chevy V-8 engine, Muncie transmission, and modified Corvette rear suspension. When the chassis was complete—with engine, transmission, rear suspension and third member, brake lines, front suspension with stock rack and pinion steering, as well as new body-mounts—the body from the stock Spitfire was prepared and set on the frame. The electrical systems were re-established and the bonnet added. Its present engine is a 383 Stroker. On the Dyno, she checked out at 470 horsepower and 500 ft-lbs of torque. This a small but very powerful car you’ll be climbing into, Driver. It has a maximum speed of 180 miles per hour, and goes from 0 to 90 in just under ten seconds.
“For the first ten seconds of the race, both The Ogre and Fairlane’s vehicle will be under the sole control of The Road. Once you have passed from the sight of the crowd, control of the vehicles will be given over to you. I trust you can drive a shift. If not—well, then, this could be a short but spectacular contest.
“You have a few minutes before you reach your destination, dear boy. Why not raid the refrigerator and wet bar? Godspeed, Driver. No pun intended.”
And with that, the screen snapped off.
I looked out the window and saw the lights reflecting from the massive car-cubes along Levegh Lane in the distance, and realized that these dead piles rose so high they could be probably be seen from any place in the city.
I wondered if, very soon, the smashed corpse of the Ogre would be added to them for future Repair material.
12
FADE IN: a seemingly endless stretch of smooth two-lane blacktop emptying into shadows. Crowds of people line both sides of the road, the men looking tough while clutching at their bottles of beer, the women looking anxious while clutching at the filtered tips of their cigarettes, and the kids—especially the really young ones—looking like they aren’t sure how they should be feeling while they clutch at the hands or coats of the tough beer drinkers and anxious cigarette smokers.
…and this is where we came, isn’t it?
I climbed out of the limo and saw the Ogre parked in the left lane up ahead, Sheriff Hummer leaning against the driver’s-side door. He saw me, gave a little wave, and gestured for me to join him.
I kept glancing at the crowd as I approached him, but after a few seconds of that realized it wasn’t the best idea; the people who comprised this crowd—men, women, children (God, the children…)—were all Repaired to varying degrees, and the fusion of flesh and metal, rather than repulse me as it had before, now seemed to possess an organic correctness that I was suddenly all too willing to accept as being normal…or what passed for normal, here. One little girl who couldn’t have been more than seven years old smiled at me, displaying a mouthful of spark plug tips that took the place of her teeth. She seemed so proud of that smile, like she was showing off. I smiled back at her, and she blushed.
Don’t look at them, I told myself. If you don’t look, then they’re not there.
Pitiful, I know, but it worked. They were shadows, props, decorations on the periphery, not real, not flesh and bone (and metal and steel, said the voice in the back of my head), and maybe, if I concentrated hard enough, I could Zen-out of this whole mess for a few moments.
“You seem tense,” said Hummer.
I looked up at him but couldn’t think of anything to say.
Then he did something that surprised me; he stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder and said, “You’ll be fine. It’s almost over.”
I heard the grinding of a large engine in the distance behind us, and as I turned the crowd broke into wild shouts and applause. More lights came on, illuminating the road, and a few seconds later the object of their adulation rolled into sight.
A great semi tractor-trailer crawled out of the darkness, pulling a car-cube, smaller than the ones I’d seen before but still fairly massive. Atop the cube four large torches burned, flames snapping against the night, one set at each corner, and in the middle of it all was a raised platform. Daddy Bliss sat there, the wheels of his chair held in place by clamps attached to the base. Large concert speakers were positioned at the sides of the platform, angled outward. Ciera stood at Daddy Bliss’s side. She’d changed clothes; she was now dressed in a paisley skirt and tight short-sleeved sweater, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, a scarf tied around her neck. She held a long red kerchief in each of her hands.
The truck crept by, rumbling and growling like a constipated dinosaur, then began a slow, wide turn, moving forward, then back, a little to the left, forward again, the driver doing an impressive job of reversing, until, finally, the car-cube was well off the road and at an angle facing the crowd.
Ciera walked to the side of the cube and pushed something over the edge; a long rope ladder that reached to the ground. She turned, blew a kiss toward Daddy Bliss, and began descending.
Daddy Bliss smiled—a celebrant at the beginning of Mass—and the crowd’s cheering grew even louder. He smiled, nodded his head a few times, then cleared his throat; amplified by the speaks, it sounded as if a section of the ground were splitting open.
The crowd fell silent.
“My children,” said Daddy Bliss.
And the crowd exploded once again. Daddy Bliss waited until the roar died down, but it took a minute; Ciera was already on the ground before he started speaking again.
“My children. As you know, our dear Road Mama has been returned to us, and is, as I speak, being Repaired. She will be back among us soon. For that, we have Driver to thank.”
The crowd erupted once more, some of them calling out my name—or, rather, the word, “Driver! Driver!”
“The Road,” said Daddy Bliss, “has granted us this contest—this trial, if you will—to see whether or not Driver is, indeed, worthy.”
Worthy of what? I thought.
“Give praise to the Road. Give thanks to the Highway People. They provide, they sustain, they bless us and watch over our loved ones under their protection.” The crowd as one looked downward and began muttering quiet thanks. Even Hummer removed his hat and bowed his head in prayer. “Driver,” said Daddy Bliss. I looked up toward him.
“You have done well for us, and have our thanks. You still have many questions, this I do realize. Know that they will be answered soon.”
I nodded.
“Very well, then,” he said, clearing his throat once more. When he spoke again, his voice was louder, powerful, commanding. “Release Fairlane.” Then he looked at me and grinned. “Sounded somewhat ominous didn’t it? Apologies. ‘Release Fairlane.’ Not quite ‘…let slip the dogs of war,’ I’m afraid.”
The crowd cheered, but this time I could hear some genuine anxiety at the edges of the sound.
And then something so incredibly absurd happened that I couldn’t even laugh at it, as much as it demanded to be laughed at: the concert speakers erupted with the opening chords of AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” and the crowd as one turned to face the road behind me.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I said to Hummer. “I got in a wreck on my way out of town and all of this is just some fucked-up hallucination that my subconscious has dredged up while my life trickles away.”
Hummer grinned, and then backhanded me across the mouth. “Did that feel like an hallucination?”
“That hurt!”
“Sorry. Seemed the best way to get the point across, all things considered.”
I shook it away, which wasn’t easy—he had one helluva powerful swing. When I was able to gather myself together and stand fully upright, I was looking down the darkened road at something that appeared to be a small bonfire, only it was moving.
The music became louder as the whole band kicked in, the thump-a-thump-thump of the base and drums shaking the ground under my feet, and the bonfire grew brighter, wider, and closer.
Ciera appeared at my side. “Fairlane is…I’d guess you’d call him…I dunno…The Road’s guard dog. Does that make sense?”
“Not really.” I tried to grin at her and didn’t quite make it. “I guess I could use some reassuring words.”
“Then try this,” said Hummer. “If you took every instance of violence, death, pain, and destruction that have occurred on the roads and highways of this country and forced them all together so that they’d have a single form, it would be Fairlane.”
I stared at him for a moment. “I think we need to compare notes about the definition of ‘reassuring.’”
“He’s the closest thing to an actual demon you’ll ever meet,” said Ciera, taking hold of my hand. “And he’s got terrible table manners.”
Hummer nodded. “Not a pretty motherfucker, that’s for sure.”
“Plus he cheats,” said Ciera.
I could make out a shape in the middle of the flames; the outline of a car’s body, the massive hunched shoulders of the driver, the glint of light off metal and chrome.
The flames, I now realized, were coming from two sources; the back tires and the exhaust pipes that ran along the sides of the car. The cloud of flame, smoke, and exhaust moved up to the right lane and came to a stop right beside the Ogre. I blinked, shielding my eyes, hacking against the fumes, and waited for the cloud to clear.
I have no idea if what happened next was just a coincidence or something that had been previously choreographed to unnerve me, but until the day I die I’ll swear that the cloud of smoke and exhaust lifted at the exact moment the song stopped.
And there he was. My opponent for the evening’s festivities. I couldn’t take him in all at once, that would have been too much, so I looked at the car first; at least I could get my head wrapped around that.
When I was a kid, I used to collect and build model cars. I tended to favor models of older cars because their shapes were so varied and cool—not like the generic stuff I saw on the roads then and still see now. One of my favorite models had been a Revell kit of a 1934 Ford High Boy Rumble Seat Roadster. To me, it was the single coolest-looking car I’d ever seen—forget that I’d never actually seen the real thing, I knew Cool when I saw it.
And this car was Cool. Same make and model, only the back end had been jacked up and the tires replaced by wide, dangerous-looking slicks. The body—what was left of it, anyway—was a fierce, bright, almost terrifying shade of red. The exhaust pipes that ran along the sides of the car covered the entire length of the body and then some, curling slightly outward at the ends. The front grille and headlights were still in place, but the rest of the body between them and the windshield had been removed to make room for an engine that was more like a gigantic chrome cobra than anything that functioned under the laws of internal combustion, its body coiled and tense, it hood expanded, ready to strike. It would not have surprised me if a forked tongue had shot out for a moment.
And then the cobra roared, just once, spitting smoke and sparks. Fairlane wanted my attention. I had no choice but look at my opponent.
His skin—what there was of it—had the gray fish-belly pallor of something spoiled, and his head was disproportionately large for his body; like Dash, part of his skull was visible where the scalp had been torn away and cauterized at the edges. Thick strands of long, greasy, dark hair hung down the back of his head, tied into something that was supposed to be a ponytail but looked more like a section of putrid intestine left dangling for the elements to feast upon. He still had his own eyes, after a fashion: each was embedded into the center of a cone-shaped floodlight welded into the sockets. His nose was a knot of mashed tissue that leaked a thick, brown substance onto his upper lip. Every few seconds he would smile, allowing the liquid to spatter down onto his long, dark tongue that lolled around like that of a particularly happy or stupid puppy, never disappearing completely into his mouth. Something about the texture and shape of the thing demanded closer attention, and when it flopped fully out of his mouth a second time, I realized that the tongue was maybe one-third human tissue; the rest of it was a fan belt onto which the organic tissue had been attached.
