finger itself, by means of six or eight additional joints, was nearly a foot long; it coiled about his arm. A bosomed Creeker waitress with a grossly recessed forehead led him to a table. She wended through the semi-circle aisle with the aid of a tiny flashlight. But when Phil sat down and ordered a beer, he noticed that she’d been holding the flashlight with a thin, stunted “accessory” arm, small as a baby’s, sprouting from her armpit.
Jeeeeze…
These sights, along with what he’d read not an hour ago, depressed him further. He glanced around to survey the audience now that his vision had acclimated. Shit, hardly anyone here. Then he glanced up to the stage…
The dancer appeared normal. Beautiful. Sleek-white in nothing but a frilled, lemon-yellow g-string. Glossy straight hair, black as pure obsidian, shimmered past her shoulders and covered her face like a smooth, silk veil. Hour-glass figure and lustrous white skin. Her legs were perfect, and her breasts—Perfect, Phil recognized. High and full, centered by pink, undefected nipples. But the back room, he knew now, existed to accommodate those whose tastes were significantly bent: kinks and slobs who got off on the misfortunes of the handicapped and the defected. Phil noticed no extra fingers or toes, no warped head, crimped spine, multiple navels, or “accessory” limbs. What’s she even doing here? he wondered. There’s not a thing wrong with her. When the stagelights upped a little, Phil was able to see the number on her garter: 6.
And that gave him an idea.
He finished his beer, paid up, tipped the waitress, and went back out to the hall. Druck was still minding the door.
“Hey, Druck,” he said. “I think I’d like to spend a little time with that last gal, number six.”
Druck’s swollen head nodded. “Uh-yeah. Purdy one, ain’t she?”
“Sure is. So what’s the deal?”
“Fifty fer a half.”
Fifty bucks for a half hour must be what he means, Phil realized. “Square,” he said. Then he discreetly slipped a fifty-dollar bill into Druck’s twin-thumbed hand.
“Just ya go on out an’wait by the side door now,” Druck said. “Name’s Honey, an’ she’ll do ya right. Give her a few ta get ready.”
“Okay, man. Thanks.”
Yeah, Mullins would love this, his star undercover cop soliciting a prostitute at a stripjoint, Phil joked to himself as he exited the club. But, no, he had no intention of soliciting sex from the girl. What he planned instead was simply a little discreet talk. Drop a few hooks, slip in a few questions, see what I can get out of her
And perhaps she could even tell him what some of those strange words meant.
Skeet-inner. Mannona, he reflected. Prey-bee. Onnamann.
Of course, it might be all for nothing; most of the Creekers had serious speech impediments and could barely talk coherently, and some couldn’t talk at all. But he wasn’t making any headway in the club, so this seemed the next logical step. He had nothing to lose—except fifty bucks, he reminded himself
As instructed, he waited by the ill-lit side door. The big road sign flashed, painting one side of his face in garish reds and yellows. The moon peeked at him from the treeline on the other side of the road, and the night’s humidity seemed to suck the sweat out of his pores.
Then—
Phil turned.
The side door clicked open, then clicked shut. The girl stood before him in flashing silhouette.
She wore a red satin robe now. She stood there a moment. Her face remained occluded by the shiny black hair; she seemed to be looking at him through sliverlike black gaps.
“Hi,” Phil said.
She opened the satin robe, fully nude beneath it.
“Got you’s yer car here?” she asked in a strained peep of a voice.
“Uh, yeah,” Phil faltered in reply.
“Well’s then, come on,” she said.
««—»»
No one believes me, Gut lamented. They all think I’m done plumb crazy.
The darkness seemed almost gelatinous; only a slant of light coursed in from the bare bulb on the outer room’s ceiling. Sometimes Gut could look into that darkness and gander the same things he saw in his mind every night. Awful things…
But at least here, in the jail, he was safe.
It was hard to keep track of time; it was hard to keep track of anything. But Gut would just as soon sit here and rot than leave ’cos he knew full well once he did that he was finished.
They’d do me just like they did Scott-Boy.
He never really slept now—he just dozed off every now and then and was jerked awake each and every time. By Natter’s evil whispers, and by the hideous things he showed him in his head. Natter’s wrecked face always seemed to hover just outside the bars, all squashed like something run over in the road, them dry puffy lips barely moving, them big blood-red eyes staring at him. Sometimes Natter’d scratch on the wall, and other times Gut thought he heard him tapping on the glass of the jailhouse’s only window with those long kinky fingers of his. Gut, Gut, the whisper creaked like old wood. Look…
And Gut looked. He had no choice really. And Natter would say fancified things too, while Gut was looking, like, Such blessings, Gut! Such epiphanies! and Behold my promised dominion, little one. Upon some future time, it will be your dominion, too… And that’s when Gut was forced to look into that place.
It was a horrible place. Smoking canyons of rock, miles deep. There was never a sun, just a big warped black moon shining its black light over blacker hills and lakes-yes, lakes, like giant steaming pools of tar, and Gut could see things in those lakes. He could see people. And then he saw other things that weren’t people at all, but monsters. The monsters would pull people out of the lake and put a rucking on them like ta make the stuff he and Scott-Boy did look like two kids playing paddycakes. These monsters would bust open folks’ heads like they was melons under Scott-Boy’s big-ass hickory pick handle, and they’d yank off arms and legs likes they was wings on flies. They’d slice folks’ bellies open and haul out their kidneys and livers and stuff and play catch with ’em, and they’d pulls people’s faces off like they was rubber masks only they wasn’t masks at all, they was the folks’ real faces. One time he’d seen one yank a fella’s spine right out his asshole. They’d chop folks up into big piles of chunks and then walk around in the piles. Once he saw one suck some fella’s insides right out his mouth lickety-split and swallered it all right down neat. And as for havin’ themselves a nut—well, these ugly monster dudes got ta layin’ dick on gals—and fellas, too—in a bigtime way. They’d stick their peters inta any hole they seed fit. Shit, one of ’em twisted a fella’s head clean off and fucked his throat, and another time Gut saw one bite a hole in a gal’s belly and get his rod off in the hole, and a whole lotta super gross shit like that…
And the whole time, Gut knowed full well what it was he was a’lookin’ at. Sure as shit, yes, sir, he was lookin’ smack-dab right down inta hell…
Yeah, he assured himself yet again, but I’m safe in here. They can’t get me in here…
And that’s when he noticed the two figures step out of the shadow by the doorway.
Two Creekers…
They peered crookedly into the cell, inbred red eyes sunk into their bulbed heads. One’s face seemed jawless, the other had no ears and just a pit for a nose.
“You can’t get me in here!” Gut yelled.
The two Creekers tittered and smiled. Then the jawless one advanced, jingling the keys to the cell door.
««—»»
“What’s this?” Phil asked. “This right here?”
“Huh?”
“This tattoo,” Phil said, and pointed. His finger daintily touched her flesh, which felt moist and very soft.
It looked crude, primitive, burned onto the milk-white skin of her upper left arm. Probably homemade, he realized. Did it with ink and needles herself. The tattoo, tiny as it may have been, clearly depicted a horrifying face
