They lifted again.
I’d like to say my life flashed before my eyes, or that I had some profound insight, even that I was imagining what it’d feel like when I hit the acid. But there was none of that, no inner existence at all. I was totally focused on the here and now: the vat, its size and shape, the liquid, its different shades of green, a single red thread sticking out of Grandpa’s shirt, how much it looked like a hair. I’ve never been more in touch with hard reality.
But as I got closer, the sensations dimmed. Something inside broke, let go, detached. It was like I was in a space capsule and the hull had been breached. I felt myself drift away. Thoughts slowed. Consciousness ran down. I wasn’t in the scene at all; I was a million miles away, watching it, getting ready to weep for the poor sucker being tossed in the vat. If I’d been a liveblood, I might’ve thought I was achieving some other incredible spiritual state, like satori, dancing on the edge of eternal bliss.
But I was a chak, and it meant I was going feral.
A sadness in the pit of my gut rumbled and grew, filling me until it wanted to explode in a moan. What difference would it make? Even if the sudden savagery gave me a burst of energy, it wouldn’t be enough to snap the handcuffs or the leather strap.
Funny. Ashby didn’t lose what was left of his mind when he went in. Maybe I was right: He’d been damaged in a way that kept him static. Not me, though. Not damaged nearly enough.
Oh, well. I’d never been very good at the whole consciousness thing anyway.
But like I said, things usually don’t work out the way I expect. This time it didn’t work out the way any of us expected. So I wasn’t in control, but it turned out neither were they. Something else was, and right before they got me over the rim, it came up to meet them.
A hand, pure, clean bone with a green liquid sheen, rose from the acid. It was followed by an arm. Together, they were more than long enough to grab Watt’s meaty shoulder. A fleshless skull broke the surface next, acid rolling off the top. Chemicals oozed from its hollows as it lifted. The jaw lowered and made an impossible sound:
“Heh-heh.”
They’d miscalculated. The acid bath, whatever was in it, didn’t work on bone. Maybe the Mask had read the recipe wrong, or maybe it was some crappy brand of acid made in China. Who knew? As for the thing that came out, Ashby’s unearthly remains, the sight of it bitch-slapped me back into my body.
What the fuck? I don’t believe in ghosts. Sometimes I don’t even believe what my eyes tell me. Whatever energized our molecular structure may work on the bones, too, but that didn’t come near to explaining how a thing without muscle was moving or making noises.
The second hand came up and also grabbed onto Watt.
“Heh-heh.”
Both hands pulled. Watt screamed.
Grandpa let go of me. Bad move. It gave me a chance to help the skeleton. I kicked with both feet, ramming Watt’s chest. He tumbled toward the vat and that was all it took. The skeleton flipped him and dragged him into the acid.
As I fell to the floor, I heard his screams swallowed by a thick, horrible splash.
No longer held, I rolled away. Drops of splashing liquid hit my jacket and started steaming. Grandpa wasn’t so lucky. He caught some on the side of his face. It started steaming, too. Ignoring the physical pain, the old man moved closer to the vat. Planning what? To pull Watt out with his hands?
Didn’t matter. The skeleton, standing now, dug its hands into Grandpa’s face, right where the acid was burning, and yanked him in, too.
As Grandpa bubbled away, I realized the pole attached to my neck strap was dangling. I looked around for the Mask, but all I could see was a slightly swinging chain near a door marked EXIT. Hands and ankles cuffed, I was in no position to chase him, but I tried. I got up, tripped, and fell after two yards.
“Heh-heh.”
I looked back as the meatless skeleton clambered out of the vat, acid dripping in a small puddle at its feet. It didn’t look like it had any more idea what it was than I did.
When it was happening, I thought Ashby had attacked Watt and Grandpa on purpose, for vengeance, or whatever. From the way it moved now, bumping and crashing into everything, I started thinking it was just trying to get out of the tank, grabbing whatever happened to be around. It was blind. It had to be. It had no eyes.
“Heh-heh.”
Or throat. So how did it make that sound? Was it really his laugh, or just the way the bones creaked against one another? Was I only hearing it in my head?
It neared me, dripping, so I squirmed out of the way. I didn’t know if it could hear, but I wasn’t going to call. For all I knew it would run over to me like a wet dog and shake that crap all over me. So I stayed quiet and watched as it stumbled into the table, knocking over all those pretty tools.
I noticed that the duffel bag and the clippers were gone.
“Heh-heh.”
By the time I squirmed up to sitting, it was farther away from me, banging among some crates. It was no longer dripping so much, so I called out, softly, “Ashby?”
It didn’t react.
“Ashby,” I managed again. “You in there?”
It hesitated. I don’t think it’d heard me. It stood in front of an open door, the one the Mask must have fled through. Maybe it sensed the breeze.
And then the body, the moving bones, the thing that used to be a chak, that was someone named Ashby before that, threw itself through the door and creaked off into the night. I heard the acid bubble in the vat, the scrape of foot bone against concrete, and the fading sound of that crazy laugh: “Heh-heh, heh-heh, heh-heh.”
18
Though my immediate prospects had much improved, my hands and ankles were still cuffed, and there was a leather strap around my neck. Reaching my cell phone was out, but I was sort of mobile. I hopped when I stood, dragged myself when I fell. After about an hour, I made it to a pay phone and punched the keys with my nose.
Though it was free and only three numbers, I sure as hell wasn’t going to try 911. They’d probably send Booth. Maybe he wasn’t out to D-cap me, but that didn’t make us friends. I could tell him about Mr. Gas Mask until I was even bluer in the face than usual, and Booth would only wonder why my legs hadn’t been broken.
To pay for a call, I had to punch in my debit card. Took six tries before I got the number right. Then I did like E.T. and phoned home. When I was finished, I leaned against a streetlamp and scanned the dark, straight line of road between the warehouses. The sedan was gone, so I didn’t expect the Mask to leap out at me, and there was no sign of Ashby. Just the same, I kept my eyes open.
It wasn’t only outside threats I had to watch for. My rich inner world had gotten pretty bad, too. In the warehouse, I’d started moaning. Street wisdom said it was only a matter of time before I went feral. Then again, if the street was so damn smart, why would it be on the street to begin with?
Half an hour later, a cab showed. The door opened. Misty’s legs slid onto the pavement, followed by the rest of her. She was so shocked when she saw me, she tripped twice running over, then wrapped her arms around me. The cabbie, who had two grisly beards, one on each chin, took one look at us, muttered something about not being into that kinky shit, and drove off.
Misty picked the handcuffs with a safety pin. Able to move my arms and legs, I checked my body, satisfied that everything was still working. She got the pole off easily enough. It just unscrewed. The padlock on the leather strap was a problem.
“It’s too narrow for the pin. I need to cut it off with some clippers or something,” she said.
I rubbed my wrists. “Could you please not use that word right now?”
I told her a little about what happened, enough for her to ask if I was okay, enough for me to say sure. I wasn’t. Yes, I was back in my body and didn’t feel a need to moan right then and there, but it’d been a real long couple of days. I didn’t know it, but it was about to get worse.
