Marie and Donny linked arms and smiled benignly at him. They could have stepped out of a '50s Sears-Roebuck catalogue, fresh from standing admiringly over their new kidney-shaped coffee table, backyard barbecue or atomic fallout shelter. Behind them, between the framed wedding photographs and the Norman Rockwell prints, Elvis could see embroidered Bible sayings.
Krokodil reached out, her arm moving faster than his eye could register, and she took a grip on his wrist. Not knowing what was happening, he instinctively craned his neck forwards, opening his mouth.
His tastebuds tingled, his saliva glands secreted. The hunk of perfectly done chop, rich brown on the outside with a core of subtle pink, was the most delicious fragment of food he had ever lusted after.
Krokodil forced his hand down, making him lower the fork.
'What?'
Donny and Marie smiled even wider. Nobody could smile that wide. Their smiles were slashes that cut into their cheeks almost to the ear, disclosing sharper and sharper back teeth.
'Is everything all right, sir?' Donny asked.
'We refund your money in full if you aren't satisfied with the food or the service,' said Marie.
'They're Josephites,' Krokodil said. 'I've seen this before.'
'Praise the Lord,' said Donny, hauling a skeletal European machine pistol out from under the counter.
'…and rejoice as you follow the Path of Joseph,' said Marie, pulling two three-feet-long, razor-edged skewers from a rack.
Elvis hit the floor, as the first stream of fire ranged across the diner. Plastic tomatoes leaped in the air and exploded ketchup. Salt and sugar shakers shattered. The checkered plastic tablecloths were shredded. Napkins danced as the bullets tore them apart.
Krokodil was flipping across the room, tables and stools flying out of her path, and Donny was trying to bring up the fire.
Elvis had his derringer out of the small of his back. He sighted on the still-grinning Donny's forehead, and put a ScumStopper into it. His fingers felt wrenched off his hand as the recoil hit him. The derringer was a one-shot fight- finisher.
Donny's perfect tan burst open, and gobbets of flesh flowered above his eyes. But there was no blood, and he kept emptying the machine pistol.
Elvis rolled just in time to avoid Marie's skewers, but the metal speared through the sleeve of his leather jacket, sticking him to the floor. Still simpering, she positioned her other spike over his heart.
'Have a nice day,' she said.
Hating to strike a lady, Elvis lashed out with his boot, aiming for Marie's midriff. The skewer above his chest wavered and plunged into linoleum, but his foot felt as if he had just tried to give Mount Rushmore a good, solid kicking.
'Now, now, courtesy is cheap, sir,' Marie said as she took his ankle and began twisting it viciously.
Donny's gun wasn't chattering any more. As he reloaded, Krokodil vaulted the counter, and double-kicked him in the head. He shrugged it off, and tried to fit a new clip into his pistol. Krokodil slipped behind him, and tried to pin his arms to his sides.
Elvis felt his bones grinding as Marie smilingly continued the torture.
There was a wrenching sound, and Elvis saw that Krokodil had pulled Donny's arms off. He turned to face her, his pipe still clamped in his mouth, and head-butted her. She went down behind the counter, the thump of their clashing skulls resounding throughout the diner. Donny wasn't bleeding from his shoulders.
Elvis tore his jacket free, and dragged himself upright. Marie still clung to his ankle, and hauled herself across the floor, her smile opening. He kicked at her teeth, trying to prevent her from fastening a poisoned mouth on him. Her hair was still perfect. Her make-up was unsmudged. It was as if her cosmetics were part of her skin.
She was babbling about the Will of the Lord and the Path of Joseph, and Elvis realized just what it was about the Josephites that stroked Krokodil's fur the wrong way.
The bastards weren't freaking human.
Donny came at him, kicking. Elvis felt agony explode in his pelvic girdle.
Marie's mouth gaped. The inside was as red as a firehouse.
And Krokodil exploded through the counter, screaming. Donny half-turned into her first slash with the cleaver, and it lodged in his neck. She should have taken his head clean off, but she simply sank the blade deep as if into a hardwood tree, and was unable to pull it out. Donny's pipe snapped, and Krokodil heart-punched him with what Elvis recognized as a killing karate stroke. The Josephite bumped back against the wall, bringing down a paint-on- velvet print of Whistler's Mother. He lurched forwards, and Krokodil shoved Marie's lost skewer into his stomach. The steel length bent as it went in, but Krokodil pushed hard, and Elvis heard the metal sinking into the wall. Pinned like a butterfly, Donny struggled but was held fast. He still wasn't bleeding, but Elvis couldn't see metal flashing in his wounds. If he was a cyborg, he was some odd new variety the Op wasn't familiar with.
Marie let him go, and slithered backwards like a crab, her starched petticoats flaring like a lizard's ruff. She was hissing like an animal.
Suddenly, the woman pushed against the floor and swung upright like a stepped-on rake. It was a neat, impossible trick.
Elvis pulled his Colt Python and shot Marie a couple of times in the chest. It didn't even slow her down. Her blouse erupted where his slugs went in, and blackened.
'It's no use,' Krokodil said. 'Bullets don't hurt them.'
Marie's smile closed, and she spoke in an even, bright, reasonable tone. 'Have you noticed how even with the new blue whiteness in your wash, you still can't get rid of understains, static cling, waxy yellow build-up, unpleasant household odours…'
Krokodil stepped in front of Elvis, and bowed to Marie, a martial arts formality that struck the Op as incredibly inappropriate.
'And is your kitchen floor sparkling fresh, lemony-honeyed, economy-sized, family-friendly, cottage-loaved, kissing sweet, babyskin-soft…'
Krokodil kicked Marie in the face, leaving a dusty footprint.
'Pain, tension, headache? You need fast relief…'
Marie's hands were around Krokodil's throat.
'Honey,' said Donny, gargling around the steel in his throat, 'I'm home.' The lights went out inside his eyes, and he sagged dead against the wall.
An adorable dog ran into the room with a rolled-newspaper and a pair of slippers in its jaws. Elvis shot it, and it rolled away in a mewling ball.
Marie's fingers were sinking into Krokodil's flesh. His employer didn't show pain, but Elvis knew she could be hurt.
He punched Marie in the kidneys to no effect, mashing his knuckles. The woman must wear solid steel foundation garments.
He was flagging. His body could take it, but inside his mind voices reminded him of his age. When he had first had the Zarathustra treatments, there had been a lot of barracks scuttlebutt about the so-called Dorian Grey Effect. Apparently, some of the first volunteers had done fine for a while but then had the years catch up with them in fast-forward, like the last reel of a horror movie.
With a gasp, Krokodil broke the grip, and landed a right cross on Marie's chin.
'A Godly Home is a Happy Home…'
Yellow fluid was leaking from Marie's eye, like yolk from a cracked egg. She tossed her hair, trying to make herself perfect again.
The Waltons were like refugees from the 1950s. The thought chilled Elvis, as he remembered the decade of the music. They weren't the only leftovers from the years of canasta, Joe McCarthy, sputnik.
Locked together, Marie and Krokodil crashed against the picture window, which exploded outwards. They rolled together onto the jetty, broke apart, and came up fighting.
Elvis left through the door, looking around for something to use as a weapon.
