Bad Guy Factory
Issue #1: “Heatseeker”
PAGE 1
PANEL ONE: SPLASH — the SEVEN ROOKIES (HEATSEEKER, DOLLY, MINK, COLDBLOODED, CELL, THROWBACK, SNAIL) are standing by themselves under a SPOTLIGHT, looking UP at BYZANTINE, a nasty, COLD-FACED old man in an ornate bronze battlesuit standing on a platform; next to him is his right-hand man, FARSIGHT.
(WE DON’T HAVE TO SEE BYZANTINE’S FACE IN THE FIRST PANEL.)
A CROWD of other COSTUMED VILLAINS fills the huge, warehouse-sized room, the main meeting space of the FACTORY, watching this SPECTACLE — most with amusement or disdain. (We might see PRETTY BOY, TIME MASTER, WALRUS and CARPENTER, FLAK, SAILOR, OCHO, MADAME MIRAGE/MIMOSA, PROFESSOR NACHTIGAL among them.
CAPTION 1: There are some things you never like to hear…
CAPTION 2: “Your credit card has been declined.”
CAPTION 3: “Your tests are back, but we didn’t get the results we’d hoped for.”
CAPTION 4: “You’re being deployed to the Middle East.”
CAPTION 5: This is a new one…
BYZANTINE: In less than two minutes, one of you is going to be DEAD.
A) TITLE: BAD GUY FACTORY
1: HEATSEEKER
B) CREDITS
PAGE 2
PANEL ONE: We see a GLOVED HAND, powerful-looking, raised to knock on a door.
CAPTION: Hakim Anthony — now calling himself Anthony Hack after being reported AWOL from the military — should have seen it coming. After all, the day pretty much started OUT like shit…
PANEL TWO: Looking over ANTHONY’s shoulder (he’s in civilian clothes as he opens the door.) We see GUARD #1 (black) and GUARD #2 (white) just beyond him, looking through the door, which is still on its chain. They are wearing sunglasses and wool watch caps and wearing coveralls. The letters “BGF” are printed on their chest pockets. GUARD #2 has a HIDEOUS DWARF about TEN INCHES HIGH (“CARPENTER”) RIDING on his SHOULDER.
GUARD #1: You Anthony Hack? Heatseeker?
ANTHONY: Could be. Who are you?
PANEL THREE: GUARD #2 points to the pocket of his coveralls.
GUARD #2: We’re from Byzantium Gates Fabrication.
PANEL FOUR: ANTHONY, a lithely muscular black man in his mid-20s, opens the door and steps back.
ANTHONY: Yeah, that’s me — but how about you? Got some I.D.?
PANEL FIVE: GUARD #1 reaches into his POCKET
GUARD #1: Oh, yeah, no problem. You got all your stuff ready?
ANTHONY (pointing toward two duffel bags): Right there.
GUARD #1: Good.
PAGE 3
PANEL ONE: (Splash) — A HUGE ARC of electrical plasma ZAPS from the object in Guard #2’s fist to ANTHONY, knocking him off his feet him with a huge and painful jolt.
SFX: GzzzZZZZAPPP!
GUARD #1: And HERE’S my I.D., BITCH!
PANELS TWO, THREE, FOUR: (Small, at bottom, panels black except for the guards’ words, unless we want to show the DISTORTION, THEN BLACK of a progression of ANTHONY passing out.)
GUARD #1 (Off Panel, as CAPTION): Now the gas to make sure he stays out.
GUARD #2 (OP, as CAPTION): Why didn’t you just use the gas in the first place?
GUARD #1 (OP, as CAPTION): Because burnin’ his no-respect ass was more fun.
GUARD #2 (OP, as CAPTION): Christ, where’d that freaky little thing go? Damn, he’s in the wastebaskets looking for food. Come help me catch the dwarf or we’ll never get back.
GUARD #1 (Cont.): Shee-it. You hear that punk? Askin’ ME for I. D…
PAGE 4
PANEL ONE: CLOSE ON ANTHONY’S FACE — TINY DROPS OF SWEAT, BUT HE’S POKER-FACED.
ANTHONY THOUGHT CAPTION 1: Man, I hate this place, and I truly hate being underground. Reminds me WAY too much of the Russian’s place…and those motherfucking flies…the FLIES…
BYZANTINE (OP): Two minutes to live — it’s not a very long time, is it?
PANEL TWO: MEDIUM SHOT on BYZANTINE, FARSIGHT.
BYZANTINE (Cont..): In any case, now that I have your attention…listen carefully and understand this: You are now part of Byzantine Gates Fabrication, sometimes known as The Factory, the most successful program ever devised for training metahumans and their associates to a life in the unregulated marketplace. You belong to me.
BYZANTINE (Cont.): I am Byzantine…and while you are here, I am your god. If you offend me in any way, you will suffer. After you leave, you will still be mine until you have paid off your debt. You know this. You all accepted the bargain before you came.
PANEL THREE: CLOSE on BYZANTINE’S FACE
BYZANTINE: But spies and traitors — that is a different story. For them, there is only one penalty.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 2: Do they know about me? Can’t be. They don’t know about me. He’s just trying it to see if anyone flinches.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 3: But I don’t flinch.
PANEL FOUR: SHOT ON ANTHONY in the midst of the other ROOKIES.
BYZANTINE: Anthony Hack — Heatseeker.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 4: Shit. They MUST know
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 5: Damn! No side-arm, no way to fight back — what kind of dumb-ass gets himself into something like this…?
ANTHONY: Sir?
PANEL FIVE: BYZANTINE — EVIL–LOOKING old dude, the COLD, ANGRY GRANDPA from HELL.
BYZANTINE: What do you think we do with traitors and spies here, Mr. Hack?
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 6: Shit!
PAGE 5
PANEL ONE: ANTHONY and MINK and THROWBACK and SNAIL
ANTHONY: I don’t know, sir.
BYZANTINE: Letisha Angel — tagging, as you young people say, as “Mink.” Tell me what you think happens to people who spy on the Factory, Miss Angel.
MINK: Don’t know. Trouble.
PANEL TWO: SAME as ONE
BYZANTINE: Mr. Carter?
THROWBACK: Oh, f’sure. BIG trouble.
PANEL THREE: SAME as ONE
PANEL FOUR: SAME as ONE.
SNAIL: Trouble. Double.
PANEL FIVE: |EVERYONE TURNS TO LOOK AT SNAIL. HE’S STARING DOWN NERVOUSLY.]
SNAIL (Cont.): Mister Bubble.
PAGE 6
PANEL ONE: BYZANTINE walks down from the PODIUM, LOOKING THEM UP AND DOWN. We see/hear his SERVO MOTORS CLICKING.
SFX: Ssss-klik. Ssss-klik. Ssss-klik.
BYZANTINE: Which of you is the one called Cell? Benny Santos?
CELL: That would be me.
PANEL TWO: BYZANTINE STOPS, stares at him like a VULTURE at a DYING MAN. We can see FARSIGHT behind BYZANTINE, still up on the PODIUM.
BYZANTINE: No, I’m afraid it wouldn’t. Mr. Farsight?
FARSIGHT: Your real name is Anselmo. You told our recruiter you’re a TP specialist for a Midwestern crime syndicate who wants to go solo. In fact, though, you’re an undercover police officer out of New Columbia PD H Plus Division.
PANEL THREE: CELL points ANGRILY at FARSIGHT.
CELL: That’s a lie, man! You got it all wrong!
FARSIGHT: I can feel him firing, sir, even through the damper effect. He’s broadcasting at full strength.
BYZANTINE: Thank you, Mr. Farsight. You see, I have my own telepath.
PANEL FOUR: CELL TURNS on BYZANTINE.
CELL: All right, you crooked bastard. You can do anything to me you want, but I just sent out a call that’s already been heard by every tp-sensitive meta in the area. You’re going to have Force Five or even U.P. all over your ass in about two minutes.
BYZANTINE: Please, give us a little credit — we’re professionals. Surely you heard Mr. Farsight mention the damper effect? The Factory has special field generators that prevent anyone from broadcasting out on any wavelength — INCLUDING the theta-plosive frequencies of most telepathy.
PANEL FIVE: SOME GUARDS are MOVING FORWARD (and ANTHONY and the others are BACKING AWAY) but BYZANTINE holds up his HAND.
CELL: Yeah? Yeah? I can still do a few tricks with microwaves — I’ll take some of your thugs down with me!
BYZANTINE: And now, Factory newcomers, we answer the question that was in all your minds: We are giving out valuable knowledge and equipment. How do we make sure our students pay us back after they graduate our little program?
PANEL SIX: CLOSE on BYZANTINE’s COLD FACE, COLD SMILE.
BYZANTINE (Cont.): The answer is — the same way we keep order among a collection of immature, super-powered sociopaths, of course. We knock them unconscious before we bring them here, then inject them with nanobots. Pyroactive nanobots that we can activate…any time we want.
PAGE 7
PANEL ONE: (BIG) BYZANTINE GESTURES and CELL GOES UP IN an INFERNO of FLAME.
CELL: AAAAHH! AAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGHGHHHHH!
PANEL TWO: Everybody SCRAMBLING AWAY while CELL burns.
PANEL THREE: NOTHING MUCH LEFT of CELL BUT A CHARRED SKELETON.
BYZANTINE: I trust this little demonstration has refined the thinking of our new trainees. Until you have learned all the rules, I suggest you consider your every action in the Factory very carefully.
BYZANTINE (Cont.): Welcome to Byzantium Gates.
PAGE 8
PANEL ONE: The SIX ROOKIES are walking back toward their SLEEPING ROOMS. Some other FACTORY “students” move either direction in the background — it’s a main corridor.
THROWBACK: Jesus! Did you SEE that?
ANTHONY: We all saw it.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 1: And now we’re all accessories, too.
PANEL TWO: THROWBACK, in his horrified enthusiasm, accidentally brushes COLDBLOODED’s SHOULDER.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 2: As far as I can tell, the ones who came in with me — or who got kidnapped and booby-trapped with me, to be more exact — are a cross-section of street kids and psychopaths
THROWBACK: I mean, that was CRAZY! They burned that guy UP! That was…it was…
COLDBLOODED: Take your hand OFFA me, cracker.
THROWBACK: Whoa, yeah, sorry…
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 3: Like Coldblooded there. I know him, even though I never met him before today. He’s half the brothers I used to run with before I went into the service and out of the life. He’ll fight you for anything — or nothing. There’s no doubt I’m gonna have to throw down with him before this is over. The only question is, should I get it out of the way fast or wait ‘til it happens on its own?
PANEL THREE: THROWBACK has stopped to watch PROFESSOR NACHTIGAL walking by, a very tall, thin middle-aged man with gelled-down hair and a face so thin and bony you can see the SKULL underneath the skin. The other ROOKIES pay no attention.
PANEL FOUR: THROWBACK IS EXCITED. MINK notices, and watches the retreating NACHTIGAL.
THROWBACK: DUDE! Did you see? That was Professor Nachtigal, I swear it was! What’s he doing here? He’s a major supervillain!
MINK: Major or not, you can bet HE don’t get it without payin’ double for it.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 4: And the women, oh God, I know them too — battered, abused, living off men because they can’t see any other way, hating every minute of it.
SNAIL: Nightingale. Fight in jail.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 5: The white boys I can’t figure out at all. Well, maybe little Darren there, what’s he call himself, Snail? He’s a bit crazy to start with, and he’s from one of those backward country places like my daddy was.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 6: Even a life of crime is better than that.
PANEL FIVE: THROWBACK approaches ANTHONY.
CODY: You saw him, right? Professor Nachtigal?
ANTHONY: You a fan?
PANEL SIX: ANTHONY is darkly AMUSED by THROWBACK.
CODY: Not so much him, but he’s FAMOUS, man — I got one of his skins! He fought Twilight Man. He even broke out of Las Sombras, so you know he’s earnin’ the big cheddar! The Godzilla scrilla!
ANTHONY: Oh, yeah, sure. Nothing like doing time in an institution for the criminally insane to boost your earning power.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 7: This Carter kid — what IS his damage? He’s stronger than any of us, he can’t shut up for ten seconds, and he seems to think this whole thing is a game. A man was just burned to death in front of him, and he…
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 8: Screw it. Doesn’t matter, Hakim. He’s picked his own path — they all have. I’m not here to save souls. I’m here to get some PAYBACK…
PAGE 9
PANEL ONE: An old man (his GRAMPA) opens the door to ANTHONY, in STREET CLOTHES. GRAMPA looks shocked, nervous.
CAPTION: EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO.
GRAMPA: Hakim? Jesus, what happened to you? Those army fellows keep coming to the door, asking about whether we heard from you yet!
PANEL TWO: GRAMPA hurries ANTHONY INSIDE — a modest living room. ANTHONY is wearing his SUNGLASSES even in the HOUSE.
GRAMPA: We hear you in trouble, boy. Dorothy said they’re gonna arrest you. I don’t think she wants you around, see, and I’m sorry, but you know it IS her house…
ANTHONY: Tell Dorothy not to worry — I’m not going to be around long enough to get anyone in trouble. It’s not like there’s anything to MY side of the story…
PANEL THREE: ANTHONY looking toward a PHOTO on top of the TV.
ANTHONY (Cont.): No, forget it. I don’t have time for this. Where’s Jameel?
PANEL FOUR: We see the PHOTO — ANTHONY, about 12 years old, and JAMEEL, a skinny 8 year old with a LEG BRACE, both trying to look TOUGH in their Sunday school clothes.
GRAMPA (Off Panel): That little brother of yours is no good. Always in trouble. He left my house and my rules months ago.
PANEL FIVE: ANTHONY has let the picture FALL OVER on the television and he’s WALKING OUT.
ANTHONY: It’s not your house, Grampa, remember? It’s Dorothy’s.
GRAMPA: Now boy, come back. Don’t be that way! We’re kin!
PANEL SIX: BANG — ANTHONY hits the front door and he’s down the steps to the STREET, a seedy but not dreadful neighborhood. He looks MAD.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION: When I heard he wasn’t there, I went cold. I knew then that everything I’d heard on the street was true. After I enlisted, Jameel had started running with gangbangers. He was small, but he had powers, just like I did. He could kind of SMELL thoughts — get a feeling for what someone was thinking, what they were going to do. And sometimes he could even make people do what he wanted. Everybody called him Headcase, and a lot of folks in the neighborhood were afraid of him, but he was still my baby brother.
PANEL SEVEN: ANTHONY with his CAP PULLED DOWN, walking out of the NEIGHBORHOOD.
CAPTION: When we were little, he used to crawl into my bed at night when Mama was fighting with one of her boyfriends. Sometimes, if the screaming got too bad, he’d be so scared he’d pee in my bed. I beat him about that a couple of times, but I never hated him for it — after all, I was all he had.
CAPTION: I guess he was all I had, too.
PAGE 10
PANEL ONE: In the GENERAL DORM AREA, between the MEN’S and WOMEN’S RESIDENCE. THROWBACK is still trying to get some ATTENTION from DOLLY and MINK — right now, he’s trying MINK.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 1: The last anyone in the neighborhood heard about Jameel, he got accepted to come here — the FACTORY. Then nothing. Nobody’s seen him, nobody’s heard from him. I turned all of South Quartz searching for him. I busted into the City Pathology Department files and looked at so many autopsy photos of unnamed DOAs that I see ‘em every night when I close my eyes — but no Jameel. He went into the Factory, but he never came out.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 2: I’m going to find him. And if he’s dead, I don’t care if it was Silas Winter himself who did it, someone’s got some shit to pay.
THROWBACK: So how come a girl as fine as you is in here? Gonna join the Fatal Femmes?
MINK: Look, scrub, if you HAD any I’d just cut ‘em off, so move along.
PANEL TWO: THROWBACK — BLINK TAKE.
PANEL THREE: THROWBACK points PAST MINK at DOLLY.
THROWBACK: Yo, actually, I was talking to HER.
THROWBACK (Cont. Now to DOLLY): So how come a girl as fine as you is in here? I couldn’t help noticing you got all that sexy Barbie thing goin’ on.
DOLLY: It’s kinda more like Raggedy Anne, really — that’s cause my tag is “Dolly”.
THROWBACK: Well, you’re fine. I like the way you move. You ever model?
DOLLY: Sort of. I used to be a dancer. Then I found out I could make more money in breaking and entering…
PANEL FOUR: MINK and DOLLY SQUARE OFF.
MINK: A DANCER? Bitch, please. You didn’t make your money just SHOWING it to people.
DOLLY: Are you calling me a whore? At least men like me. I heard about you — I heard how you had to kill your boyfriend…
PANEL FIVE: SPLAT! MINK KICKS — her BOOT lashes around and hits DOLLY so hard DOLLY’s head BLOWS UP! THROWBACK is ALARMED and IMPRESSED. SFX: SKELCH!
THROWBACK: Holy SHIT!
PAGE 11
PANEL ONE: A river of DOLLY flies out of the COLLAR of her COSTUME from the force of MINK’S kick, leaving the costume on the floor.
PANEL TWO: The river of DOLLY-FLESH hits the ground and then two ARMS form and flip it over, back toward MINK.
PANEL THREE: The BATTERING-RAM-like FEET hit MINK in the head, knocking her backward.
DOLLY: You’re dead, bitch!
PANEL FOUR: MINK’s wrist blades come out as DOLLY reforms.
SFX: CHING-CHING! CHING-CHING!
MINK: Fine. Let’s see who stops breathing first.
PANEL FIVE: PRETTY BOY is SUDDENLY standing between them — POP! He has CAUGHT MINK’S WRIST IN HIS HAND. We can see that DOLLY has just started to SAG away from the strike.
PRETTY BOY: Ah-ah-ah. You chicas going to have to find a better way to work this out.
PAGE 12
PANEL ONE: PRETTY BOY in the midst of the ROOKIES, willing to be ADMIRED.
THROWBACK: Who are YOU?
PRETTY BOY: They call me Pretty Boy — yes, yes, I know you can see why. Now move along. You all supposed to be in your rooms.
PANEL TWO: PRETTY BOY is irritated with COLDBLOODED, who’s giving him the EYE.
PRETTY BOY (Cont. — to COLDBLOODED): You, too. Go on. I know you worried, first night away from your mamas
COLDBLOODED: Shut up, bitch! Don’t talk to me like you know me!
PANEL THREE: COLDBLOODED is now LEANING INTO PRETTY BOY’s grill while the others watch with various degrees of interest/nervousness.
PRETTY BOY: Oh, you going to throw some catos with me? You want to mix it?
SNAIL (quietly): Fix it.
COLDBLOODED: You disrespect me, you’re disrespecting all the Los Reyes Screwtops.
PRETTY BOY: Oh, man, you sniffin’ the big time and you’re STILL reppin’ that gang shit? Are you gonna take a shot or just stand there like a pussy?
PANEL FOUR: COLDBLOODED takes a swing. PRETTY BOY is gone.
PANEL FIVE: PRETTY BOY taps him on the shoulder from behind.
PANEL SIX: COLDBLOODED swings on him again. PRETTY BOY is gone.
PAGE 13
PANEL ONE: PRETTY BOY has reappeared, GRINNING. COLDBLOODED POINTS at him with his RIGHT HAND.
COLDBLOODED: Motherfucker…! I don’t have to hit you to mess you up!
PANEL TWO: COLDBLOODED’s HAND turns GLOWING ORANGE HOT, so fast there are little SPARKS of BURNING DUST.
PANEL THREE: PRETTY BOY hits him HARD, and so fast it seems simultaneous — we see him STRIKE THREE TIMES.
SFX: CHUD! CHUD! CHUD!
PANEL FOUR: COLDBLOODED is down on the ground with PRETTY BOY’s foot on his throat and the other on the wrist of his HOT HAND.
PRETTY BOY: Check it — there are only thirteen people faster than me in the WHOLE WORLD. You ain’t one of ‘em. Now get the hell back to your block before I pull your eyeballs out and play hacky-sack with ‘em, chavalo.
PANEL FIVE: THROWBACK puppydogs PRETTY BOY.
THROWBACK: Thirteen? Wow! You must be a Level 8. Even Overdrive’s only a Level 9.
PRETTY BOY (to THROWBACK): You into that stuff, huh? Actually, I was only number fifteen in the world until last week, then this East Coast guy named Courier got a rip in his friction suit when he was doing, like, Mach Mucho — vato blew up like a Tijuana bottle rocket…
PAGE 14
PANEL ONE: DOLLY and MINK are leaning in the MEN’S DORM doorway — well, DOLLY does, MINK hangs back, looking CONTEMPTUOUS. SNAIL and THROWBACK are looking at something on SNAIL’S FOLD-DOWN computer screen.
DOLLY: We’re going upstairs to get new costumes.
THROWBACK: Yo, Doll. Make sure they don’t cover up TOO much.
DOLLY: Ooh. Aren’t YOU a bad boy…
MINK: Shit. You think you’re Big Mack, but you’re only Vanilla Shake, white boy. And speakin’ of dumb as shit, what is that you’re looking at? Oh, jeesus, is that Plusdotcom? That shit is so OLD.
ANTHONY: The superhero website? Explains a lot.
THROWBACK: I hope you ain’t putting down Plusdotcom, because they got it ALL. Where else a beginner gonna get some face? Look, they got an article on one of the guys who’s in here with us! Toxin, his name is. They made him one a’ their YVORs.
MINK: Why vee oh WHAT?
THROWBACK: Young Villains on the Rise.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION: I swear to god, has this whole country gone crazy while I was overseas?
DOLLY: Little boys and their toys.
THROWBACK: Hey, I ain’t playin’ — I take this stuff seriously. This is research.
ANTHONY: That ain’t research. That’s self-abuse.
PAGE 15
PANEL ONE (SMALL): The MEN are getting out of an INDUSTRIAL ELEVATOR. THROWBACK (wearing a NEW) is looking REPROACHFULLY at ANTHONY.
THROWBACK:…But you didn’t have to do me like that in front of the ladies. That was cold.
PANEL TWO (BIG): They are in the midst of a HUGE INDUSTRIAL AREA with LOTS OF BRANCHES, CORRIDORS, WEIRD EQUIPMENT, ETC. This could be
our chance to see a lot of OTHER “STUDENTS” like TOXIN, some TEACHERS, ETC.
THROWBACK (Cont.): Man, how are you supposed to find ANYTHING around here?
ANTHONY: They said the weapon shop was on level 5. We’re on level 5. Follow the blue line. I’m relying on you — I can’t even SEE color with these things on.
PAGE 16
PANEL ONE: THROWBACK is INTERESTED, in a fan-boy way.
THROWBACK: So, what’s your trip? I mean, like, your powers?
ANTHONY: I see into the infra-red and ultra-violet. And I can do some other stuff.
THROWBACK: Oh, kind of like Pipistrel, huh? That bat-chick? You a mutant, too?
PANEL TWO: THROWBACK sees TIME MASTER/MASTER TIME, who is pushing past COLDBLOODED — THROWBACK’S EYES WIDEN. He’s STOPPED LISTENING.
ANTHONY: No. I got my powers the old-fashioned way.
ANTHONY (Cont., quietly): Shot in the back by my best friend, then shoved into a vat of active nanobuilders…
TIME MASTER: No! Don’t go! They’re waiting for you — they know!
COLDBLOODED: Look out, you crazy mother…!
PANEL THREE: TIME MASTER STOPS right in front of ANTHONY, GRABS his LAPELS (or the equivalent.) ANTHONY is TAKEN ABACK.
TIME MASTER: Don’t you understand? They’re way ahead of you — HE’S way ahead of you.
ANTHONY: What the hell are you saying?
PANEL FOUR: TIME MASTER STUMBLES AWAY, leaving ANTHONY shaken.
TIME MASTER: Well…then you better take sun block. And plenty of it.
ANTHONY: What was THAT about?
THROWBACK: I don’t know, but, dude, that was Time Master! He fought everyone! He’s the guy that dropped that dinosaur into the Tonight Show! Ate like a hundred people before Regent showed up and knocked it out! A T-Rex!
SNAIL: S-s-special effects.
PANEL FIVE: THROWBACK pissed — SNAIL looking ASHAMED.
THROWBACK: No way! It was real! From, like, TIME.
SNAIL: Sorry. I can’t help it. I just…say things. They rhyme, sometimes.
COLDBLOODED: What, you trying to be a rapper?
PANEL SIX: ANTHONY has found a DOOR, MARKED “ARMORY”
SNAIL: No, it’s a s-syndrome. I’ve got a…a syndrome.
COLDBLOODED: So do I. It’s called “I’m sick of hearin’ your retarded ass.”
ANTHONY: I think I found the place.
PAGE 17
PANEL ONE: IN THE WEAPONS SHOP with FLAK, a middle-aged black man in a functional BATTLE-SUIT. He looks like he might have been a top-sergeant in the military — very short gray-flecked military cut, no facial hair. He has an unlit cigar in his mouth at almost all times. He’s addressing COLDBLOODED and THROWBACK.
FLAK: You two I got no use for.
THROWBACK: Why? What do you mean?
PANEL TWO: FLAK frowns at THROWBACK.
FLAK: ‘Cause you ain’t got no weapons, stupid.
THROWBACK: You could give us some.
PANEL THREE: FLAK STARES at THROWBACK.
PANEL FOUR: FLAK to THROWBACK.
FLAK: Boy, you have no idea of the countless ways in which I could permanently fuck you up. It’s only because you haven’t yet earned back a single penny for this facility that I’m gonna refrain from ripping off your nutsack right this moment. Go on. You boys get the hell out of here.
PANEL FIVE: FLAK TURNS to ANTHONY and SNAIL. Behind him, THROWBACK and COLDBLOODED are heading briskly for the exit.
FLAK: As for you two, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do for you…
FLAK (Cont.): Special Forces Paladin-class defensive suit. Doesn’t need much but routine maintenance. Stolen?
ANTHONY: Not exactly. Put it this way — I was wearing it when I left. You’ve seen one of these before?
PANEL SIX: FLAK turns to SNAIL.
FLAK: Seen it? Pretty much designed it. And how about YOU, son? That’s an interesting suit you got there. Looks like it’s made of old car parts. Where’d you steal it?
SNAIL: I didn’t. I…I made it.
FLAK: Oh, really? All by your little old self? Where?
SNAIL (Cont.): In shop class.
PANEL SEVEN: FLAK raises an eyebrow.
FLAK: Well, boy, if that’s true, you and I may have a few things to talk about after all…
PAGE 18
PANEL ONE: IN THE COSTUME SHOP, with SAILOR AND OCHO. MINK and DOLLY are just leaving as HEATSEEKER and SNAIL come in. THROWBACK is having a fitting while COLDBLOODED struggles with HOMOPHOBIC PANIC.
SAILOR: Now, when you meet him, ladies, you remember what I told you! I know he’s DELICIOUS — but stay away. He’s got that name for a reason!
SAILOR (Cont.): Oh, look, more BOYS! What was it the Coast Goddess use to say? “Ten men waiting for me? Send one home — I’m tired tonight.”
PANEL TWO: TALKING and WORKING around the COSTUMING TABLE while THROWBACK stands on a LOW STOOL.
SAILOR: Come on in. I’m Sailor. I used to work her, you know — you’ve heard of her, right, Coast Goddess, she had the floating palace, always threatening to shoot Polaris missiles at public buildings? Was SHE Miss Stampy-Crampy most of the time — oh my GOD. That woman just had her bitch on TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN. But the food was pretty good.
SAILOR (Cont.): My handsome Ocho was muscle for Eightball ‘til he got taken down by Twilight Man and all the Eights got laid off. We met at one of the Sultan’s cattle calls. It was the Sultan, wasn’t it? Or was it one of the Crimson Conjuror’s?
Ocho: Yeah, Sultan. What’s this coat thing?
SAILOR: It’s coming off, don’t worry. I’ll say one thing for the Sultan, he was one of the good old TVs.
THROWBACK: A television?
PANEL THREE: SAILOR rolls his eyes.
SAILOR: No, silly boy, Traditional Villains. You might get hit in the jaw a lot, and do some jail time, but when you were working for him you got your check every Friday and you got bailed out in 24 hours or less. Not like Silas Winter. I don’t know why ANYONE works for that mess.
OCHO: Pays good. But he crazy.
SAILOR: Tell me about it. He electrocuted someone I knew to death for bringing him the wrong kind of breakfast! TO DEATH!
PANEL FOUR: THROWBACK has his ARMS PULLED BACK UNCOMFORTABLY because OCHO’S grabbed the back of his HOODIE between SHOULDERS.
THROWBACK: Hey!
OCHO: Look what happen when I grab you coat. Can’t move you arms.
SAILOR: He’s right, we need something less restrictive. And does it all REALLY have to be black?
PANEL FIVE: THROWBACK protesting — he LOVES his COSTUME.
THROWBACK: I wear all these different shirts. It’s my gimmick. And black goes with everything.
SAILOR: Oh my GOD. Yes, it goes with everything, but so do Levis. You don’t see Black Dog wearing 501s, do you? Colonel Breakskull in relaxed-fit Dockers? No, no — there’s such a thing as TOO casual.
PANEL SIX: SAILOR is looking CRITICALLY at THROWBACK. OCHO has THROWBACK’s arms pulled back even TIGHTER — THROWBACK looks like he’s STRANGLING.
SAILOR (Cont.): How about slate gray instead — that’s nice, but not quite so Weekend Goth? Or, well, you’d be surprised at how many things go with teal…
PAGE 19
PANEL ONE: THE DORM — LIGHTS OUT. ANTHONY is strapping on his GEAR by the dim NIGHTLIGHT, getting everything ready. His SUNGLASSES are STILL ON.
ANTHONY THOUGHT CAPTION #1: Locked and loaded. Going into some shit you don’t know — the only certain thing is, you get unlucky, you’re dead, like that poor cop. Like me in the Forces…at Benne Yhaar. Why am I DOING this again?
PANEL TWO: The NIGHTLIGHT, seen from BELOW.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 2: Benne Yhaar — even the name’s still like poison. The place where everything changed.
PANEL THREE: FLASHBACK — the NIGHTLIGHT is now a MOON ABOVE HELICOPTER BLADES.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 3: We had just helped the Northern Alliance take Mazar-al-Sharif. About the time everybody else in Afghanistan was going south after Bin Laden, chasing him into Tora Bora, my squad was sent on a mission north, into the mountains where the borders get crazy — me and Jojo and the rest, accompanying three strangers with the hardest eyes I’d ever seen.
PANEL FOUR: FLASHBACK — THREE WHITE GUYS TALKING, being watched by ANTHONY and his friend JOJO
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 3: I thought they were CIA, but I still don’t know for sure. Could have been Red River or one of the other private firms. They didn’t bother to tell us anything, so I don’t even know the lie.
PANEL FIVE: FLASHBACK — About a DOZEN MEN walking down a MOUNTAIN TRAIL at NIGHT, IN FULL GEAR.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 4: All we knew was that we were going in to secure some kind of site named Benne Yhaar. I dimly grasped that it had something to do with weapons, but like I said, those dudes were close-mouthed. At the time I didn’t even know why us Forces guys were going along, but I found out.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 5: Because they needed RAW MEAT…
PANEL SIX: The SILHOUETTED MEN become the SILHOUETTE of THROWBACK tossing in his BUNK.
THROWBACK: Mmrrnh.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 6: Shit. Focus, Hakim — FOCUS. You got a job here.
PAGE 20
PANEL ONE: ANTHONY is out the OPEN DOOR of their cell/dorm room. He’s still wearing his SUNGLASSES and he’s holding up a little OBJECT like a LIMPET MINE.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 1: Man, I bumped tougher locks than that when I was a freelance removal expert.
PANEL TWO: He sticks the OBJECT on the wall by the CELL.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 2: This is the dangerous part. Either this transponder preempts the digital security cameras and feeds them a loop of the last ninety seconds for as long as I’m out of my dorm room, or cell, or whatever you call it…
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 3:…Or I’m going to get cooked like that poor cop this morning.
PANEL THREE: He takes his SUNGLASSES OFF, LOOKS AROUND. For the first time, we see his WEIRD EYES.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 4: I can’t afford more than a quick recon — too many ways to get into trouble…
PANEL FOUR: ANTHONY’S POV — sees HEAT-PATTERNS OF GUARDS coming around corner
PANEL FIVE: GUARD who hit ANTHONY JAWING with the other GUARD (from pages 2–4.) We don’t see ANTHONY.
GUARD #1: Oh, I’m gonna notch me some of these new punks, you damn bet…
PANEL SIX: NOW we see ANTHONY — WEDGED IN A CORNER of the CEILING, right above where the GUARDS just walked.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 5: Damn! I HATE that guy. Memo to self: if there’s ever a chance to push his face in without blowing my cover, I’m gonna take it.
PAGE 21
PANEL ONE: Still ANTHONY’S POV — his SPECIAL VISION. HE has CHANGED LEVELS. We see HEAT-TRACES on the floor (footprints) and the air (where bodies have passed) and from machinery, etc.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 1: This must be their main office. Even if they’ve wiped out all Jameel’s records, I might be able to find some evidence of what happened. The only question is, is someone on duty here 24/7?
PANEL TWO: An OFFICE WINDOW, in HEATSEEKER-VISION — it’s FARSIGHT.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 2: That Farsight guy. Well, that makes sense, I guess — I didn’t figure Byzantine for the kind of dude who sleeps in his store at night.
PANEL THREE: FARSIGHT turns toward him, as if he senses ANTHONY’S PRESENCE.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 3: Shit! Does he know I’m here? But this place damps TP, and I’ve got my suit shields on, too!
PANEL FOUR: ANTHONY going hurriedly down STAIRS.
ANTHONY THOUGHT-CAPTION 4: I got a bad feeling about that guy. I don’t want anything to do with him yet…
PANEL FIVE: A DARK SHAPE SWOOPS THROUGH THE AIR. ANTHONY IS KNOCKED SIDEWAYS by a FOOT IN THE BACK.
PANEL SIX: FOOT ON ANTHONY’S THROAT — He is GENUINELY CHOKING. We can’t see WHO’S DOING IT.
THROWBACK (OP): Oh, man, you are SO DEAD.
NEXT ISSUE: THE PLACE OF FLIES
PAGE 22
(This is going to be a page representing the PLUSDOTCOM website: It should LOOK like an ENTERTAINMENT SITE — LOTS OF PICTURES, POINTLESS
GRAPHICS, Etc. It will have a tie-in to the story, and we’ll probably have one page each issue. Here’s the first article, just as an example.) SPECIAL ALL–VILLAINS ISSUE! THE SHADOW CIRCUIT — A GRAY MARKET FOR EVIL?
People think of supervillains stealing bullion from Fort Wayne or holding the world to ransom with giant laser weapons, but in an exclusive for PlusDotCom, investigative reporter K. Allen Lilly says that many professional bad guys and gals reap a sizeable income from the Shadow Circuit, lecturing and consulting with other criminal organizations, foreign governments, and a few “straight” businesses that don’t mind having a reputation as “sharks” in mainstream corporate waters. Disgraced former governor and international arms dealer Hart Huon is of course the biggest act in this shadowy world, but such criminal masterminds as General Disorder, Maxim Nachtigal, Professor Tyrus Trinch, and the frankly frightening Silas Winter also command big appearance fees and are reported to be booked months or even years in advance.
“It’s a wonder some of them even bother with regular crime anymore,” says reporter Lilly. “Trinch or Huon could live the rest of their lives on under-the-table appearance fees from straight corporations and legitimate governments. If they’re committing crimes or fighting superheroes, it’s ‘cause they WANT to.”
(READ ARTICLE)
HEROES BELIEVE A HIGHER POWER HELPING THE HORROR
The powerful lawbreaker known as the Horror is responding well to a dose of religious education, according to a spokesman for Regent and his fellow born-again Christian hero, the Flag.
“He’s not mindless,” the source told PlusDotCom, “and he didn’t want to be a villain. Ever since the original accident that made him what he is, he’s had moments of sanity and remorse. Regent believes he has a responsibility to use his unique position to minister to lost souls, not just imprison them, and Flag has agreed to throw his own popular name behind a campaign to rehabilitate human-plus prisoners through faith.”
Not all the members of United Powers agree with Regent and the Flag, however: other sources suggest that Twilight Man, who captured the Horror in a televised battle on top of the San Amaro Bay Bridge, has announced his disenchantment with the project, suggesting the superstrong criminal is only pretending to feel sorry about his numerous crimes to get more lenient treatment.
(READ ARTICLE)
BAD BOYS AND BAD GIRLS
Highlights of the Year in Villainy, including Butcher Baker’s spectacular airport robbery, Knave of Hearts pre-empting the Super Bowl, and unforgettable video of the pitched battle between the Chain Gang and Force Five that leveled Jefferson City Hall — as well as a look at our Young Villains on the Rise at work and play, and new and fascinating killer faces like Hooligan, Fog, Toxin, and Murder One
(READ ARTICLE)
If they’re mad, bad, and dangerous to know, PlusDotCom’s got ‘em — in the SPECIAL ALL–VILLAINS ISSUE!
Tad Williams
A Stark And Wormy Knight
The Thursday Men
“ Y OU KNOW ANYONE FAMOUS NAMED ‘ M ONDAY’?” Liz asked.
“You mean like Rick Monday? Used to play for the Dodgers back in the ‘70s?” That was from Ted the technician. I never cared much about baseball myself.
“Okay,” said Liz. “So that’s one for Monday. And there’s Tuesday Weld, the actress.”
“I thought of another one — Ruby Tuesday, that Rolling Stones song,” said Ted, and began to hum it — or at least he hummed what he thought, in his tuneless way, it sounded like. He’s a decent enough kid and a pretty good technician, but if the BPRD ever fires him he’s not going to be making a living on the pro Karaoke circuit.
“I thought we were going to play cards,” I said. My cigar had gone out and I couldn’t find my lighter. “What is all this crap?”
Liz kindled her fingertip and re-lit my stogie. “I’ve just been thinking about the days of the week and people who have them as names,” she said. “Wednesday from the Addams Family. Robinson Crusoe’s Man Friday.”
“No!” shouted Ted. “Has to be Joe Friday! From Dragnet.”
“You weren’t even alive when that was on,” I growled.
Liz went on as if we weren’t talking. “And there’s Baron Saturday — he’s one of the voodoo gods, I guess you’d call them. You know about them, right, HB?”
I have had more than a few strange adventures in the New Orleans area over the years. “Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I want to talk about it. What’s your point?”
“And Billy Sunday was a famous evangelist or something — my grandmother used to talk about him.” She frowned. “But I still can’t come up with a Thursday. I don’t think there are any.”
“Ooh, I thought of one,” said Ted. “There’s a pretty famous spy book called ‘The Man Who Was Thursday’.”
“Yeah, but it was just his code name,” I pointed out.
Ted looked at me in surprise. “You read G. K. Chesterton?”
“Does that seem so unlikely?” I put my cigar in the corner of my mouth and did my best to look intellectual — not that easy to do when you’re seven feet tall, literally ugly as sin, and red as a fire truck from head to foot. “But I’ll give you a real one, if you promise to shut up and play some damn cards. Grayson Thursday. In fact, there were a whole bunch of Thursdays, when you get down to it.”
“It doesn’t count if nobody’s ever heard of them,” Liz said, pouting. She makes those grumpy-kid faces, you almost forget she could napalm a city block if the urge took her.
“But it does sound familiar,” said Ted. “Why is that?”
“Maybe you read the file,” I said, knowing he probably had. The kid studied up on me when he came here like a Yankees fan memorizing all the stats of his favorite player. When it came to me, he could tell you the BP|RD equivalent of my on-base percentage or average with runners in scoring position for every year of my career.
Hey, I said I didn’t care much about baseball, I didn’t say I didn’t know anything about it.
I looked at the two of them. They were waiting expectantly. “Crap,” I said. “We’re not going to play cards, are we?”
“Come on, tell about this Thursday guy,” Liz said. “If I know who he is, then maybe it’ll count for my list.”
“Wait, was that back in the 80s? The guy with the magical grandfather clock?” Ted said. “I think I remember…”
“Just shut up,” I suggested. “And keep it shut. I’m the one telling the story.”
It was the first time I’d been on the California coast above San Francisco. It’s interesting how quick you can go from a place packed with people and lights and car horns and things like that to the middle of nowhere. Once you get about an hour or so north of the Golden Gate Bridge, most of it’s like that — the kind of place where you realize you’ve been listening to the seagulls and the ocean all day and not much else. Or at least that’s how it was when I went to Monk’s Point back in early March of 1984. Maybe it’s different now.
Albie Bayless met me off the BPRD plane at Sonoma County Aiport. Bayless was a former reporter with the San Francisco Examiner who’d retired to his hometown a few years back and taken over the local shopper, the Monk’s Point Beacon. He’d had some past contact with the BPRD and me — you remember that Zodiac guy, the murderer everyone says he was never caught? No, nobody knows the BPRD had anything to do with that — I didn’t file an official report on that one. Probably never will. Anyway, when Bayless stumbled onto the weird death of Rufino Gentle and what happened after, he called my bosses at the bureau and suggested they send me out to have a look-see.
Bayless was wearing shorts and had grown a beard. He looked a good bit older and saggier than the last time I’d seen him, but I was there to work with him, not marry him. “Still got that bad sunburn, I see,” he said as I came down the ladder. Funny guy. I squeezed into the passenger seat of his car and he filled me in on details along the way. The town was called Monk’s Point because there used to be a Russian monastery out on the rocky headland overlooking a dent in the coastline called Caldo Bay. The population of monks had dwindled until the last of them went back to Russian at the end of the 19th century. Later the monastery was turned into a lighthouse when the Caldo Bay fishing industry hit its stride. Those glory days passed too, and the lighthouse was decommissioned in the 1960s. The property on the point now belonged to some out-of-town rich guy who hardly anybody ever saw. But the place itself had a bad reputation going back even before the Russians arrived. The local Indians had been a tribe called “Zegrado”, which, Bayless informed me cheerfully, was a corruption of the Spanish word for “cursed.”
As I discovered, “cursed” and “dying” were the two words that seemed to come up often in almost any conversation about Monk’s Point. The reasons became clear when we drove through the center of town, a handful of weathered plank buildings beside a tiny harbor at the mouth of a little dent in the coastline called Caldo Bay. There were half a dozen stores and a coffee shop and a bar, plus a few more places that looked like they’d been boarded up for a while. I doubt there were a thousand people in total living there. Things had gone downhill since the cannery closed. The town’s young people were leaving as soon as they were old enough, and except for Albie Bayless, no one was moving back in.
“Everybody always says the place is dying,” Bayless told me. “But they still get upset when someone actually dies — at least when there’s no good explanation for it. That’s what happened here last week. A kid named Gentle — Rufino Tamayo Gentle, how’s that for a name? — was out here with some friend. I guess Gentle and his buddies were troublemakers by small town standards, but nothing too bad, a couple of busts for pot and loitering, some suspicion of breaking into tourist’s cars. Anyway, on a bet, young Gentle climbed over the fence and went up to the famous haunted house. His friends waited for him. He never came back, never showed up for school. One of the kids mentioned it to a teacher. Result was, a local cop came by, cut off the bolt and walked up to the house. He found young Gentle standing on the front path, head slumped like he’d fallen asleep standing up. Body was stone cold — he’d been dead for hours.”
“Standing up?”
“That’s what the cop swears. He’s not the type to make things up, either.”
“You said one of the kid’s friends told a teacher. What about Gentle boy’s parents? Didn’t they notice he didn’t come back?”
Bayless smirked. “You’ll have to meet the kid’s dad. There’s a piece of work.”
“Okay,” I said, “‘dead standing up’ is definitely an interesting trick, but it isn’t why you called us, is it?”
“Nope. That would be ‘Rufino’s ‘Escape.’ But first I’m gonna take you to my place, get you some dinner.”
Just a half mile or so past the not-so-bustling downtown, Bayless pulled up to a gate across a private road. It was surrounded by weeds and sawgrass and looked like it didn’t get opened much. Beyond it a long, curving driveway led away toward the top of the hill. The house itself, the ex-monastery, was mostly hidden from view behind the headland, but the lighthouse loomed in clear view, pale as a mushroom. The windows at the top went all the way around, but the impression was nevertheless of someone looking away from you, staring out over the sea — someone you didn’t want to disturb, and not just out of courtesy.
“I don’t like it,” I said.
“You’re not alone,” said Bayless. “Nobody likes it. Nobody ever has. The local Indians hated the place. The monks only stayed about thirty years, then they all went back to Russia, saying the place was unholy. Even the guy who owns it now hardly ever shows up.”
Albie Bayless lived in a mobile home on the outskirts of town — not a trailer, but one of those things that look pretty much like a house with tin sides. He kept it up nice, and he wasn’t too bad a cook, either. As I listened to him I spooned up my bowl of chili. He made his with raisins and wild mushrooms, which actually worked out pretty good.
“The reason the dad didn’t report his son missing is that he’s a drunk,” Albie said. “Bobby Gentle. Supposedly an artist, but hasn’t sold anything that I know of. One of those ex-hippie types who moved here in the late sixties. Kid’s mother left about five or six years back. Sad.”
“But that’s not why you called us.”
“I’m coming to it. So they found the kid dead, like I told you. No question about it. No pulse, body cold. Took him to the local medical examiner over in Craneville and here’s the good part. The body got up off the examination table, sort of accidentally slugged the examiner — it was thrashing around a lot, I think — and escaped.”
“So he wasn’t actually dead.”
Albie fixed me with a significant look. “Think again, kimo sabe. This was after the autopsy.”
That didn’t sound good at all. “After?”
“Yeah. Chest cracked and sewn up again. Skull sawed open. Veins full of embalming fluid.”
“Jesus. That’s nasty.”
“Imagine how the guy felt who’d just done the sewing.”
“And you’re sure the coroner’s not in on some body-selling scam?”
“Kind of a stupidly vivid story to tell if you don’t want to attract attention, don’t you think?”
I had to concede that one. “Okay, so the kid goes to Monk’s Point lighthouse on a dare, dies standing up, then walks off the autopsy table and runs away. Weird. Anything else?”
“Oh, yeah. You see, I was already doing research as soon as I heard about the boy being found dead. I didn’t know him, but I thought it might make an interesting wire service piece — you know, ‘Old ghost story haunts modern murder’…”
“Old ghost story?”
“Like I said, everybody’s scared of this place, and it turns out there’s good reason. A lot of weird stuff’s happened there and in the area just around it, going back as far as I can research, everything from noise complaints to murders, old ghost stories and local kid’s rhymes and other odd stuff, even some UFO sightings. It kind of goes in cycles, some years almost nothing, other years things happening a few times a month. It began to remind me of some of the places you told me about back in San Francisco, when we were working on, y’know…”
“I know,” I growled. “Don’t remind me.” I took out a cigar. “You mind?”
“Go ahead.” Albie got up and opened the window.
I could hear the frogs outside kicking up their evening fuss, and, dimly, the sound of seabirds. “I think I want to have a look at the place close up.”
I stood in front of the gate. The lighthouse was nothing much more than a big dark line blocking the stars like paint. “I think I’m going to have a look around. You were going to tell me something about the guy who owns the place.”
Bayless pulled his jacket a bit tighter. It was cold for the time of year. “Grayson Thursday. It’s been in his family for a long time. He’s hard to get hold of, but he’s supposed to see us the day after tomorrow.”
“Good enough,” I said. “See you in the morning.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” He looked upset, but I didn’t know whether it was because he was scared for me or he’d been looking forward to the company. “What if you’re not back in the morning?”
“Tell the children that Daddy died a hero.” I ground out my cigar on the gravel driveway, then vaulted over the gate. “See ya, Albie.”
The local real estate market wasn’t losing anything by having the Monk’s Point property in the hands of one family. It was kind of butt-ugly, to tell the truth. As I came around the headland so I could see the buildings properly, my first thought was, So what? There really wasn’t much to it — the lighthouse, plain and white as vanilla, and a big, three-story barnlike structure with a few other outbuildings pushed up against it like they were all huddled together against the hilltop wind. Still, my feelings from earlier hadn’t changed: something about the place, as subtle as a trick of light or angle of land, made it easy not to like. In the dark it had a thin, rotten sheen like fungus.
I stopped on the pathway in front of the barnlike building’s front door, figuring this must be where the kid had ended up. I looked around carefully, but couldn’t see anything that was going to stop someone’s heart. The front door was locked, but the pockets of my coat were full of remedies for a problem like that, and a few moments later I was inside, swinging a flashlight around.
If this Thursday guy and his family had hung on to the house for a while, it looked like it was mainly to keep their old junk. It was like some weird flea market, with the stuffed heads of deer and other wild animals on the wall, with dozens of other examples of the taxidermist’s art in glass cases or stands all over the huge front room, even a stuffed Kodiak bear looming almost ten feet high on its hind legs. The shelves were piled with books and curios, an old pipe organ stood against one wall, and a grandfather clock the size of a phone booth stood against another. Some of the junk actually looked kind of interesting and I strolled around picking things up at random — a model sailing ship, a conch shell the size of a tuba, some giant South American beetles that had been preserved and posed and dressed like a mariachi band. Three quarters of an hour or so passed as I wandered in and out of the various rooms, some of which seemed to have been dormitory rooms for the monastery, all of which seemed to have the same kitschy decorator as downstairs, as though the place had been planned as a museum but never opened. I even walked up the winding stairs of the lighthouse itself, which was as bare as the rest of the place was cluttered. It didn’t look like the beacon had been lit in recorded memory — the wires had been torn out, the big lamp removed. I took the long walk back down.
I looked at my watch. A little after eleven. I sat on an overstuffed chair that didn’t cramp my tail too badly, switched off my flashlight, and settled in to wait.
I may have dozed off. The first thing I noticed was a glow in the high windows, a sickly, pale gleam, pulsing slowly. It took me a moment to realize what it was — above my head the lighthouse had smoldered into a sort of weird half-life. I started across the room, but before I got to the foot of the stairs I heard a strange, rustling sound, as though a flock of birds was nesting in the high rafters. I stopped. The noises were getting louder, not just rustles but creaks, crackles, pops and snaps, as if the room was a bowl full of cereal and someone had just poured the milk.
I swung my flashlight around. A stuffed seagull on a stand meant to look like a dock piling was stretching its wings, glaring at me. The deer-head on the wall behind it was straining to get loose, rattling and bumping its wooden plaque against the wall. Something moved beside me and I snatched my hand back. It was a replica of a Spanish galleon, its sails inflating and deflating like an agitated blowfish.
“Oh, this is just CRAP!” I said.
Outside the windows the green light was still dim but the pulses were becoming more rapid and the whole room was growing more wrong by the moment — the air had gone icy cold and smelled harsh and strange, scents I had no name for. I took a few steps back and something broke on the other side of the room with a splintering crash, then a huge shape came thumping and stumbling out of the shadows. It was the stuffed bear, walking like a stiff-legged drunk, swinging its clawed arms as it went.
“You must be kidding me,” I said, but the thing wasn’t answering. It wasn’t even alive, just moving. One of its glass eyes had popped out, leaving behind a hole full of dangling straw. I stared at this for a half a second too long and the thing caught me on the side of the head with one of those swinging paws. It might have been stuffed, but it felt like it was poured full of wet cement. It knocked me halfway across the room and I’m no feather. Something other than the latest improvements in taxidermy were definitely going on, but I didn’t really have time to think about it too much, since the giant bear was on top of me and trying to rip my head off my neck. It felt like it weighed about twice as much as a real bear, and trying to throw it off was already making me tired. I dragged out my pistol and shoved it up against the furry belly.
I emptied the gun into it. “No picnic basket for YOU, Yogi!” I shouted. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! No soap. The thing just kept bashing me. Trying to shoot a stuffed bear — stupid, stupid, stupid.
Eventually I rammed the thing through the wall and got its head stuck deep enough that I could finally pull myself loose. No sooner had I got rid of the bear than a tiger rug wrapped itself around my ankles and started trying to gnaw off my feet. The whole place was nuts — the paintings on the wall with their eyeballs bulging, trying to talk, the stuffed animals jerking around like they’d been electrified. I’d had enough of this crap. I kicked the rug up into the rafters where it hung, gnashing its teeth and swiping at me with its claws, then I made a run for the front door. I couldn’t help but notice as I ran past that the grandfather clock was lit up from within like a jukebox, glowing and, well, sort of pulsing. And the air around it was murky with strange, colored shadows which were streaming into the clock like salmon swimming upstream to spawn. Every one that went past me burned icy cold and made my skin tingle. It didn’t take much to know that this was the center of the haunting or whatever it was. It was pulling on me, too, a strong, steady suction like a whirlpool in dark, cold water. I had to struggle against it to reach the door.
I was happy enough to get outside at first.
The sickly glow from the top of the lighthouse was barely strong enough to light the long grass waving on the hilltop, but it was enough to illuminate the thin shape standing at the bottom of the path, swaying a little, head hanging down as though in some kind of hypnotic trance. Whoever it was, they didn’t have a prayer against that stuff behind me.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Get out of here!” I hurried down the path. If I had to, I’d just throw whoever it was over my shoulder and carry him…
The first thing weird I noticed was that the Y-shaped pattern on the guy’s chest wasn’t a design on a shirt. I realized that because of the second weird thing — he was naked. The third thing was that the shape on his chest was made of stitches. Big ones. In fact, it wasn’t a guy in any normal sense at all — it was Rufino Gentle’s body, fresh off the autopsy table, standing just about where it must have been found in the first place.
I’ve seen a lot of creepy stuff in my time, but that doesn’t mean you get used to it, you know.
I grabbed at his hair as I got close and lifted his head so I could look into his eyes. No resistance at all. Nothing in his eyes, either. Dead — I’m telling you, dead. Not like you say it about someone who doesn’t care any more, I mean dead as in “not alive.” There was nothing like a soul or a sensibility in that corpse, but it was still standing there, swaying a little in the wind, long dark hair flipping around, a livid new autopsy scar stretching up past his navel and forking to both collarbones. When the wind caught his hair again I couldn’t help noticing that the top of his skull was gone, too, his brain sitting right there like a soft-boiled egg in a cup. He was holding the rest of his skull in his dead hand, clutching it like it was an ashtray he’d made at summer camp.
I’d had a rough night. I don’t think anyone will blame me for not bringing Rufino Gentle’s body back with me. He looked pretty comfortable standing there, anyway, so I left him there and hurried down to the fence and Albie Bayless waiting in his car.
“Did you see the lights?” Albie asked me, wide-eyed.
“We’ll talk about it,” I told him. “Bur first I need to drink about nine beers. Do you have nine beers at your place? Because if not, I really, really hope there’s somewhere open in this godforsaken little town where we can get some.”
“The Gentle kid’s body, just…standing there?” Albie asked again as we got into the car the next morning. This was about the twentieth time. “You really saw it?”
I don’t think Albie had slept very well. I wondered if maybe I’d told him too much.
“Trust me — I’ve seen worse things in my day. I have to admit, though, you’ve developed a few new wrinkles here.”
Grayson Thursday was waiting for us in his office, a little storefront place that looked like it might have been the site of one of those telemarketing boiler rooms. There was a computer — the 1980s kind, so it looked like the mating of a Hammond organ and an typewriter — a television, a telephone, and that was about it. He had a desk with a single notepad on it. Not a file cabinet in sight. Thursday himself was a kindly looking gentleman of about sixty, although his face was a little odd in a way I couldn’t entirely put my finger on at first. Like he’d been in an accident and had gone through some cosmetic surgery afterward that didn’t quite iron out all the bumps. His voice was a little odd, too, as though he’d been born deaf but had learned to talk anyway. But what really worried me was that he didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual about me at all — didn’t even look twice when we were introduced. That I’m not used to, and it gave me a bad feeling.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for this meeting, Mr. Bayless, Mr. Boy,” he said. “I don’t get into town very often.”
“Oh, yeah? Where do you live?” I asked him.
“Quite a long way away.” He smiled as if he was thinking of something else entirely and adjusted the sleeves of his expensive sweater. “Now, what can I do for you gentlemen?’
“My associate and I want to ask you a few things about the Monk’s Point property,” Albie told him.
“Is this about the Gentle boy?” He shook his head. “Terrible thing — tragic.”
Oddly enough, he really sounded like he felt bad about it. It didn’t make me any more comfortable with him, though.
Thursday proceeded to answer a bunch of questions about the house — how long his family had owned it (seventy years or so), what they used it for (it had been a local museum, but never earned enough money, so for now it was just sitting there), and why they didn’t sell it to a hotel company (family sentiment and the historical value of the property.) All very expected, but I was watching Thursday more than listening to the answers. Something about him just didn’t quite seem right. He seemed…distant. Not like he was on drugs, or senile, just weirdly slow and detached.
“I hope that’s been some help to you,” he said and stood up, indicating that our time was over. “What happened to the boy was very sad, but as I told the police already, it’s nothing to do with me. Now I’m afraid I have some important errands to run. Please leave a message with my answering service if there’s anything else I can do for you. I won’t be back in town until next week.”
As we went out into the parking lot, I asked Albie, “Did he say he wasn’t going to be back until next week?”
“Yeah, why?”
“And didn’t you tell me he made you wait a week for this meeting?”
“I guess.”
“And it just happens today’s Thursday. And his last name’s Thursday.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Never mind. Can you look some stuff up for me this afternoon? I’ll give you a list. And before you start, drop me off at Bobby Gentle’s house.”
“The dead kid’s father? Why?”
“His name was on a notepad on Thursday’s desk.”
Albie shrugged. “You’re the boss. Try not to scare anyone to death.”
“There’s been enough of that already,” I said.
After the Baylessmobile rolled away, I walked up the long, overgrown driveway but stopped and stepped into the trees before I reached the house. I waited for no more than a quarter hour before Grayson Thursday rolled up the driveway past me in his spanking new Mercedes. I waited a couple of minutes then followed, but the yard around the ramshackle house was covered with dry grass that hadn’t been mowed in months, not to mention all kinds of other trash, and it was hard to get close without making a noise. Thursday didn’t stay very long, anyway. I had to duck back into the trees again as he came out, got into his beautiful car and bumped off down the driveway.
When he was gone, I knocked on the peeling paint of the front door.
“Jesus Christ!” said Bobby Gentle when he saw me, and jumped back into his shabby living room, then darted out of sight. That was the kind of reaction I was used to. I felt better already.
“Don’t bother getting out a gun,” I called after him. “I don’t mean you any harm, but I am armed and I’m probably a better shot than you are. I just want to talk.” I looked around the living room. The place was a mess, cigarette butts and beer bottles everywhere, along with greasy fast-food wrappers, month’s worth. A couple of not-very-good seascapes hung on the nicotine-stained walls. If they were Gentle’s, I knew why he wasn’t selling much.
He came out of the back room slowly, his hands open wide. He hadn’t been able to find the gun, anyway.
“Swear you ain’t gonna hurt me?”
“I promise. Sit down.”
He squinted. “What the hell are you? Some kinda lobster-man? You ain’t gonna pinch me with that claw, are you?”
Gentle Senior was a piece of work, no doubt about it. He stank of booze and it wasn’t even noon yet, so I figured he must be sweating it out of every pore. He was as pale as his son, but without the excuse of having had all the blood pumped out of him. I kind of doubted he’d been outside more than a couple of times in the last six months. His hair was long in the back, thin on the top, and stringy and greasy all over and he hadn’t killed himself keeping up with his shaving, either. Still, the last week couldn’t have been easy on anyone. “Sorry about your son,” I said. “Rufino, that was his name, right?”
“Yeah. His mama named him after some famous spick painter. Before she took off and left me. But I got the boy back off her. Went to court for it.” For a moment his angry little red eyes lost what focus they’d had. “Bitch wasn’t taking my boy to live in some commune full of tofu-eating losers.”
Tempting as it was, I didn’t really want to spend the whole day with this charmer. “I’ll cut to the chase, Mr. Gentle. You’ve just had a visit from Grayson Thursday. I suspect it has something to do with your son’s death. Would you mind telling me what he saw you about?”
He looked at me in surprise and confusion, then his pale skin turned almost as red as mine. Before I could react, he bolted out of the living room and down the hall. He pulled a door shut behind him and locked it. I was patting my pockets for a lockpick when I looked again at the state of the rest of the place, then I just broke off the knob.
The bathroom was empty except for a stack of Hustler magazines beside the toilet and an ancient no-pest strip dangling from the lightbulb. The window was open, the screen kicked out.
I caught him in the woods a hundred yards away. He was pretty fast for a rummy, but for some reason he was carrying a suitcase, and I can get this bulk of mine moving pretty quick when I want to.
“No!” he screamed when he saw me, and threw the suitcase end over end into the deep undergrowth. “You can’t have it! I never got anything else for him! All that boy ever did was cost me! You can’t take it away!”
I picked him up by one arm and let him sway in the wind a little bit until he stopped yelling and started whimpering. “What are you talking about? Why did you run away? What did you throw?”
He stared at me, or did his best to focus in my direction, anyway. “You don’t want to take it away from me? You’re not going to steal it?” He grimaced. “Damn! I shoulda kept my big mouth shut!”
“I’m sure that’s not the first time you’ve said those words — and I’ll bet it won’t be the last.” I put my face really close to his, doing my best not to breathe in. “Now, if you don’t want me to swing you around in a circle until this arm of yours comes off, you’d better tell me what you’re babbling about.”
“The money Mr. Thursday gave me. It was ‘cause my boy died! He said so! There’s no crime in me having it!”
I shook my head. “He gave you money? How much?”
Now his eyes got shifty. “I don’t know. A couple of thousand…”
I lifted him higher. I heard something pop in his shoulder and he shrieked. “Don’t lie to me, Gentle.”
“A hundred thousand! He said it was a hundred thousand!”
I set him down. A hundred thousand? That was crazy. “Go get it.”
He came back with the suitcase cradled in his arms. I swear he was tearing up at the thought I was going to take it off him. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever expressed that much care and concern for his own son. “Open it,” I told him. He did. If it wasn’t a hundred thousand dollars, you could have fooled me. Stacks of new bills, side by side. I made a face and turned around, heading back toward the road. This whole thing was pissing me off.
“So…I can keep it?” he called.
“Far as I’m concerned. But you’d better keep your mouth shut about it or someone less genteel than me will come out here and take it away from you.”
Last I saw of him he was scurrying back toward his falling-down house, suitcase once more gripped tight against his chest.
It was well into the afternoon by the time I had hiked back to Albie’s mobile home. He met me at the front door.
“Guess what I found out,” he said. “Oh, and do you want some chili? I was just going to heat some up.”
“Later,” I said. “And you can tell me what you found out while you’re driving me back into town. We’re going to talk with that lying son of a gun Thursday before he takes off again.”
“Why’s he a liar?” Albie asked as he maneuvered his car out onto the main road.
“You remember him saying the murder was nothing to do with him, right? Well, he was just over at Bobby Gentle’s place and gave the guy a hundred thousand dollars. Does that sound like nothing-to-do-with-me money? Or like some kind of payoff instead?”
Albie whistled. “I never knew my little town was so exciting.”
I scowled. “In my business, there’s a thin line between ‘exciting’ and ‘multiple fatalities,’ and I hope we stay on one side of it.”
Nobody was in at the office, so I sent Albie into the coffee shop to buy me a couple of burgers and we sat in the car and ate while we kept a watch on the place. “So what did you find?” I asked him.
He handed me a stack of green print-out pages about the width of my thumb. My bigger thumb. “I pulled every story I could on weird stuff happening near that house, going back to the monastery days. There are lots of Indian legends, but they didn’t have what we’re looking for, of course…”
“And?”
“And guess what I found. Almost every single murder, UFO sighting, public panic, you name it, for the last hundred and forty years, happened on…”
“Thursday,” I said.
“Well, no. But you were half-right.”
I was stunned — my theory had just been shot to hell. I squinted at the print-out. “What do you mean?”
“Look. A few did happen on Thursday, or at least that’s when they were reported. And a few seemed to have happened on Tuesdays. But almost every other freaky thing — dozens of them — happened on a Wednesday, between midnight and midnight. Which, if you remember, was also when the Gentle kid must have died.”
So it wasn’t back to square one, after all. I felt mighty relieved. But it probably meant I was going to be spending at least another week on this one, so I was a bit disappointed, too. “Wednesday, huh?”
“Thursday.”
Now I was losing my temper. “But you just said…!”
“No, I mean that’s Thursday — over there.” He pointed to where a silky black Mercedes was just pulling into the reserved parking space in front of the office. “He’s back.”
We waited until he’d gone in before following. I didn’t want to spook him. I’d chased enough weirdos for one day.
The inner office door was locked, but I leaned on it and it popped open. Grayson Thursday looked up at us. He didn’t look as surprised as he should have, but I don’t think it’s because he was expecting us. He just wasn’t very good at showing human emotions.
“Okay,” I growled. “Sit down. You aren’t going anywhere until we have some answers.”
He did manage “puzzled” pretty well. “Didn’t we finish our conversation earlier?”
“Can that crap. Tell us the truth about Monk’s Point.” I flopped the stack of print-outs down on his desk. “Tell us why stuff’s been happening there for a hundred years, and probably more. And why it always seems to happen on the same damn day of the week.”
His mouth worked for a moment. He really didn’t look right and it was starting to bug me. If you’re going to wear a disguise, at least try and be convincing. I yanked out my gun and stuck it in his face. “I’m losing my temper here. You’re a lousy fake, you know? Your watch is upside down, your shoes are on the wrong feet, and your pupils don’t contract when the light changes. Now talk to us or I’ll blow your head into little bits. That may not bother you personally very much, but I’m betting it will be at least an inconvenience.” I was also betting on the fact that he wouldn’t know and couldn’t guess that I’m not the kind of guy to shoot except in self-defense. Sometimes when you’re huge and red and scary-looking like me, a bluff is your best move.
He waved his hands frantically. “No! Don’t! We have no right!”
Now he’d confused me again. “No right to what?”
“We have no right to damage this body.” He patted himself gingerly, as if it was a rented tux and he was afraid he might wrinkle it. “It is only borrowed. Its owner is in a comatose state, but he may recover someday. Please do not ignite your weapon.”
I turned to Albie Bayless, who looked pretty confused. I felt sorry for him. Even I’m not completely used to this stuff, even though I do it for a living. “Sit down, Albie,” I said. “I think we’re finally going to get some answers.”
“As you’ve guessed,” Grayson Thursday said, “my people are not natives of your earth. Or, to be more exact, we are native only to a small part of your world — the portion that happens on the day you call Thursday.”
“I’m lost already,” said Albie cheerfully. “Or I’ve finally gone crazy.”
“Our dimension intersects with yours, but at an angle, so to speak — our lives only touch yours once every seven of your days. We have explored your dimension, but we have no physical existence here and normally cannot interact with the inhabitants, so our visits had only ever been for the furtherance of science…until things went wrong. You are so far from us, so different, that other than these few scientific expeditions we might as well be in different universes.”
“Thursday’s child has far to go,” I said.
“What’s that?” Thursday asked.
“A nursery rhyme. Bayless, you must know it. ‘Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go…” And Grayson’s people are Thursday’s children, I guess.”
Grayson Thursday nodded. “Very appropriate — disturbingly so. Because it is not us but Wednesday’s Children who are the problem. The are indeed ‘full of woe’, and it is our fault. We bred them too well. We gave them enough life to be aware of their own condition, their own…shortcomings.”
“Okay, now you lost me,” I said. “Try again.”
“We are an old race.” He shook his head. “We were tired of striving, of struggling. We wanted rest. So we created a race of servants for ourselves. Not like us — we made them primitive, without emotions…or so we thought. Creatures that would not object to servitude.”
“To slavery, you mean.” I scowled. “Let me guess. They didn’t feel the same way about it as you expected them to.”
“After many thousands of years, yes, they did become restless.” It was hard to tell, but the stiff face looked a little ashamed. “There was an…uprising. We realized that we had created a permanent problem. Our servants were more numerous than us. We could not destroy them — we are not that kind of race.”
“In other words, you could make and keep slaves but you couldn’t kill them.”
“You mock the complexity of our problem,” Thursday said sadly. “But it is more or less true. So our greatest thinkers devised a way to solve the problem. We found a parallel dimension, one that had no outlet back into our world. We transported our unruly servants there and left them to make their own lives. We even apologized, but they were too savage, too discontented to feel anything but hatred toward us.”
“Imagine that.” I sat up and tucked my gun back in its holster. “Let me guess. The place you dumped your slaves leaks into our dimension. Right here at Monk’s Point.”
He sighed. It was the closest to human he’d seemed so far. “Yes. We did not know that at the time, of course, or we would have sent them somewhere else. Apparently all our parallel dimension intersect your timeline here in this dimension. Thus, the Wednesday Men, as you might term them, imprisoned one dimension over from us. Full of woe — and anger. And once a week, if conditions are right, their prison touches on this world.”
“So why are you here? And what are you doing about Monk’s Point?”
Thursday grimaced. “We have done the best we could to keep them there. We have filled the place with attractive host-bodies — you see, like my people and I, they have no physical forms here, and must find things to occupy. Thus, we have provided once-living shells that attract them. And the house is warded with various defenses. It does not always work, I’m sad to say. Sometimes the flow from what you would call the Wednesday dimension is very strong and they spill out past the barriers we have made. That is when…unfortunate things happen.”
“Yeah. And your job is to show up here once a week, when the Thursday dimension opens into ours, and pay off the victims or their families. To keep them quiet, or just to ease your own consciences?”
“Please.” He actually looked pained. “We encourage silence, of course, but I am here to repair, in a small measure, the harm we have done.” He shook his head. “We did not mean this to happen, but we no longer have the power to move our former servants to another place. They have grown too strong, too canny — we could never trick them again as we did the first time.”
“Well, isn’t this just sweet,” I said, and looked at Albie, who was busy scribbling notes. “Why are you bothering, Bayless? You’ll never be able to print this story.”
He looked shocked, his face suddenly old and helpless. “What do you mean?”
“Well, leaving out the fact that you’d get put in a nuthouse, let’s not forget that you called in the BPRD, and this is now government jurisdiction. But we’ve got bigger problem, anyway.” I turned back to Grayson Thursday. “Do you want to make up for what you’ve done? End this problem once and for all?”
“Of course, but it cannot be done…”
“Hey, buddy, in our dimension, we never say ‘cannot’. For one thing, we use contractions.” I stood up. “I’ll tell you what you need to do.” I grabbed Albie’s pen and handed it to him. “You’d better write it down, because I’m guessing your dimension goes back out of phase with us at midnight, so we won’t be seeing each other for a week. If you get this wrong, we’re all in trouble. Big trouble.”
“Like what?” Albie Bayless asked.
I would have liked to reassure him, but I wasn’t in a reassuring mood. “Like end-of-the-world trouble.”
It was Tuesday morning when I landed again at the Sonoma County airport. Albie was waiting for me. He was definitely looking old and tired, like maybe he was wishing he’d taken this being-retired thing more seriously. Getting a glimpse of what squirms under the rock of everyday reality can do that for you. I definitely wasn’t going to let him get any closer to the lighthouse than I had to.
“How was your trip?” he asked.
“Connecticut, what’s there to say?” I told him. “The guys at the bureau say hi. A bunch of them still remember you from ’69.”
“That’s nice,” he said. “How was New Orleans?”
“Even freakier than usual. I did get to spend a nice night on the town.” I have more than a few friends in New Orleans, and there are a few places I can go and eat red beans and listen to music where nobody bats an eye at me. I like that.
“And your…shopping?”
“Good, I think — I hope. We’ll see. There’s no recipe book for this stuff — we kind of make it up as we go along.”
It was a pleasant enough trip west through toward the coast and Caldo Bay — you could smell and see Spring on the way — but I wasn’t really looking forward to visiting Monk’s Point. As he drove, Albie filled me in one what had been happening, not that there was much news. The only excitement in town was that Bobby Gentle was spending what he called “his insurance money” like it was water, and there was a permanent 24-hour party going on out at his house, with all the local rummies and freeloaders prominently represented.
“I can’t help thinking about that poor kid — or at least his body,” I said. “You never saw anything so empty and so lost.”
Albie shuddered. “Come on, don’t.”
When we arrived chez Bayless I opened my two suitcases and started spreading stuff out on the table. Albie watched me with wide eyes as I counted and sorted. “What is all that?”
“Fighting gear,” I said as I shoved things into a knapsack. “And some other tricks. It’s how we’re going to take it to the Wednesday boys, basically.”
“How’s that going to work?”
“You mean, how do I hope it’s going to work? I’d rather tell you after I live through it, if I manage. It’ll be less embarrassing that way.” I wasn’t feeling all that confident, to be honest. “You got a beer?”
The afternoon ticked away in small talk and me packing and repacking my knapsack and coat pockets about a hundred times. At one point I was making Albie so nervous I got up and took a walk along the headlands above the ocean. The lighthouse at Monk’s Point stuck up like a warning finger. I turned my back on it and concentrated on the dark-green water, the white chop kicked up by the rising wind. Seagulls banked and keened. It was like standing at the edge of the universe. Which, if I thought about what was going to open up in a few hours just half a mile away, was pretty much the case.
So much for putting my mind at ease.
After dark had come down good and solid, I let Albie drive me up to the bottom of the hill at the edge of the Monk’s Point property. “You go home now,” I said. “Don’t get any stupid ideas about coming to help me, no matter what happens — you’ll wind up doing the “Thriller” dance alongside the Gentle kid. Come back at dawn Thursday.”
“That’s more than twenty-four hours from now!”
“I’m aware. If I’m not waiting for you then, go home and call the bureau.”
Albie shook my hand and tried to smile. “Second time, damn it,” he said.
“Second time what?”
“First Zodiac, then this,” he said. “Second time I’ve been sitting on the story of the century and both times you wouldn’t let me write it.”
“Oh, you can write it,” I told him as I got out and headed for the fence. “Feel free. You just can’t show it to anyone.”
Inside the house I picked a spot just a few yards away from the grandfather clock, which was almost ten feet tall and as ornate as a baroque chapel. Once I’d got my equipment set up, I hunkered down to wait. I might even have drowsed a little. About ten minutes to midnight, with the wind blowing hard outside and the breakers crashing below, I turned on the special lights. They didn’t make the place any brighter, of course — they weren’t that kind of lights. But when I put on the blue quartz goggles the boys at the Bureau had whipped up for me, all of a sudden I could see all kinds of things I couldn’t before, including how the air seethed and glowed around the big clock, and how the thing itself didn’t look much like a clock anymore, but like something a lot less ordinary and a lot more complex.
“We put it there to keep the fabric of the wound in space/time from getting any larger,” Thursday had told me. “We can’t close the hole back up, but the clock-construct will keep it from getting any worse.”
Based on what he could tell me, I’d had the bureau’s tech boys and girls get to work, and so, with my special lights and special goggles, I was actually able to see what was happening as midnight came and the Wednesday dimension opened into our own.
It wasn’t pretty.
The clock began to strike midnight. On the twelfth toll, the space around the clock — there’s no other way to put it — split open. What came pouring out was light like a bad bruise and wisps of something smoky yet as liquid as dripping glue that nevertheless had the shape of living creatures, with limbs and a depressing bump where a head should be. Their eyes were empty black holes, but they were holes that melted and ran like the yolks of soft-boiled eggs. Flapping, ragged mouths gaped beneath them, and I was grateful I couldn’t hear the noise they made, because I could feel it vibrating in my bones and even that was sickening.
I turned on the “brass knuckles”, as the technicians had named them, which looked like a couple of glass and wire watchbands, one of them big enough to stretch over the Hand of Doom. For a moment I felt the vibration they made, then my hands just…weren’t anymore. I couldn’t feel them at all. I hoped that meant that the Wednesday Men would. I stepped toward the clock.
“You’re not going anywhere, Sloppy Face,” I told the nearest of them and swung at him. There wasn’t much in the way of a satisfying impact, but kind of snap and sizzle like an electrical shock, and the thing flailed backward, its nasty mouth all hooty and shocked. I grinned. “Didn’t like that, huh? Well, come and see what we’re serving on Wednesdays around here from now on!”
It was the donnybrook of all donnybrooks and it went on for hours. It was like flying all the way to Asia with in-flight entertainment by the Spanish Inquisition. I could only touch them with my hands, but tey hit, scratched and bit. Sometimes they grabbed me and it burned, burned bad. Then for a little while they’d retreat and huddle in the glowing depths of the clock, just inside the gap into their dimension, and look out at me like eels hiding in the rocks, whispering to each other in a deep, soundless rumble I could feel in my teeth. That would give me a few minutes to rest before they broke out and tried me again. Like I said, hours went by, and I had only one thought: Keep ‘em here. Don’t let ‘em past.
I had a few other weapons from the tech boys, but I knew ultimately I wouldn’t be able to push them all back by myself. I just had to hang in and keep them in the vicinity of the clock until the rest of the plan kicked in. When I absolutely couldn’t make it another moment without rest, Every now I chucked one of my precious supply of vibration-augmented grenades at them, which disrupted them and probably hurt them like hell, too — in any case, each grenade sent them flapping and slurping back into the breach for a bit. Then they’d get back their courage and come at me again.
It was pretty much like the Spartans at Thermopylae. I had to stop them and keep them here. As long as they were busy trying to kill me, or occupying the various stuffed animal corpses, we had a chance. If they got beyond the perimeter, we were in trouble.
And, yeah, they used everything — stag and boar heads jumping off the walls, gouging and biting, stuffed ferrets breaking loose from their pedestals to run snapping up my trouser legs. Even the giant Kodiak bear made a re-appearance about six in the morning, at a moment when I was feeling particularly exhausted. I was ready for it this time, though and after about half an hour rolling around with it I broke off its arms, then let out all its stuffing with a Gurkha knife.
Things got a little quieter as the sun rose — the Wednesday Men didn’t seem to like the light very much — but I couldn’t afford to turn my back on them and I certainly didn’t dare sleep. I popped a few amphetamine tablets I’d brought with me and did my best to pay attention. I walked around the place beating the random crap out of anything alive that shouldn’t have been, trying to keep all activity confined to the area around the clock. I did have time to eat a sandwich in the middle of the day, which was nice. I’d brought a sack lunch, including two packages of Twinkies. It’s the little things that make fighting for the survival of our dimension worthwhile.
Damn, I was tired, though. Things began to ramp up again as the sun set on Wednesday night — the things might not have understood who I was or what I was doing, but they were clearly getting frustrated as hell. As soon as the dark came they were all over me again in earnest, and I can’t really tell you what happened for the next several hours. I just fought to stay alive, using my vibration-enhanced hands and weapons on the things themselves, using the clubs and knives I’d brought with me to beat the unholy bejabbers out any of the stuffed corpses they hid themselves in the way hermit crabs used seashells.
The last hour before midnight was the worst. I think they’d begun to get an inkling that I meant to do more than deprive them of their fun for a single week, and if I thought they’d fought hard before, I hadn’t seen anything. I wished for about the hundredth time I’d brought more help from the Bureau, but I hadn’t wanted to risk anyone else. I still had no idea what was going to happen at the end — for all I knew, we’d wind up with a scorched hole a mile wide where the town had been, or something even worse, like a blackened rip in the space/time continuum. itself
At the end, they finally got me. I was boneless as a flatworm, exhausted, battered, sucking air but not catching my breath, and to be honest, I couldn’t even remember why I was fighting. A bunch of them charged and pulled me down, then they swarmed over me like giant moaning jellyfish. That was it, I knew. All over. I was too tired to care.
Then, from what seemed like a hundred miles away I heard the grandfather clock begin to chime, a surprisingly deep, slow sound, and suddenly the light around me changed color, from purple-blue to a bright reddish-orange. The things on top of me rolled off, buzzing in surprise, as a host of new shapes burst from the clock. They didn’t look a thing like human beings, but they didn’t look like the Wednesday Men either, and I knew that Grayson Thursday had kept his word and brought his friends. The cavalry had come.
“Pull them back in!” I shouted, although the Thursday folk probably couldn’t understand me or perhaps even hear me. Nevetheless, they knew what to do. The orange, glowing shapes grabbed my attackers and the other Wednesday Men and began to drag them back toward the shimmering lights of the big clock. Not that the moaning jellyfish-things went without a fight — people were dying, that was clear, even if they didn’t look like people.
It seemed to go on for an hour, but it must have happened during the twelve times the clock struck. At the end, the last of the glowering Wednesday shapes had been pulled back into the breach, and one of the Thursday Men looked back at me with his face that wasn’t a face.
“Thanks, buddy!” I shouted. “Now I suggest you all duck!” I pulled out the egg grenade. I’d saved it for last, saved it carefully. Not only was it set to the same vibrational field as the Wednesday Men — and that of their entire dimension — but I’d had one of my friends down in New Orleans prepare it for me, so the grenade itself was taped to a black hen’s egg full of serious hoodoo powder. See, hoodoo magic is crossroads magic, and if a place where one world runs into another isn’t a crossroad, I don’t know what is. I ‘d gone to see some folks who knew how to deal with such things.
One of the Wednesday Men had got away and was oozing back toward the breach, mouth wide in an unheard roar of frustration. “Hey, Soupy,” I shouted. “Regards from Baron Saturday!” I pulled the pin and threw the hoodoo egg grenade.
I’ve never seen half the colors that explosion made, and I hope I never see them again — they hurt my eyes something fierce and made my brain all itchy. Not only did the blast seem to close the breach, it blew the clock itself to fragments and started big pieces of roof beam falling down as well. It was all I could do to crawl out into the post-midnight darkness before the walls themselves started to collapse. The last thing I saw before I passed out was the lighthouse tower shiver and then crumble, falling down into the ocean in big white chunks.
Albie Bayless found me in the morning. He stared at the ruins like a kid who’s not only seen Santa Claus but been given a supersonic ride to the North Pole strapped onto the runners of the fat man’s sleigh.
“What happened?”
“I held the pass,” I told him. “It’s closed now.”
“For good?”
I groaned as I sat up. “I’m not sure. That’s why I’ve got one more thing to do.” I limped over to the spot at the edge of the property where I’d left my last little surprise. I ached all over, and judging by the worried expression on Albie Bayless’ face, I must have looked pretty bad, too. It hurt even to lift the lead box, which was about the size of a tool chest. Normally I could have picked it up with a finger and thumb.
“What’s that?”
“Something we’re going to leave behind.” I led him back to the wreckage of the Monk’s Point house and picked a patch of open ground. I dug a hole and put the lead box in it. I tried not to read the stuff scratched on it. My friend in New Orleans had said it would work and that’s all I needed to know. She’s a smart lady.
“But what is it?” Albie asked as I kicked dirt over it.
“That box contains the mortal remains of a man named Albert Dupage,” I said. “Killed half a dozen men because he claimed they were cheating him at cards. Killed his family too, wife and kids, but that was another time. Killed a sheriff and a deputy, and the local circuit preacher as well. Meanest, craziest man in all of St. Bernard Parish, everyone says. When a posse finally tracked him in the swamp down and shot him down like a mad dog, he was buried at the crossroads just to keep his evil spirit from finding its way back home.” I smiled. Even that hurt. “I figure we’ll leave him here to guard this crossroad, just in case those Wednesday boys get an idea about coming back. They’ll have to get through Albert, and I don’t think it’ll be easy.”
There was one more part of the Monk’s Point story. As I was recuperating the next afternoon in the sunshine of the front yard at Albie Bayless’ place — Albie himself was in the house, putting raisins in his chili — I heard a rustling in the bushes and looked up. The figure standing there wasn’t naked any more. It was wearing somebody’s pink bathrobe, but the new garment was a little too small to conceal the Y-shaped autopsy scar. This time, though, he was looking right at me, and there was an intelligence to his face that hadn’t been there last time.
“Rufino?” I asked. “That you?” I asked calmly, but I was a little worried in case it was one of the Wednesday Men who’d got out before the breach was shut.
“Roof,” he said. “That’s what everyone calls me.” The boy shook his head slowly. “Used to call me. ‘Cause I’m dead now.”
“So I heard.” I beckoned him over. “Sit down. How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad. I don’t like the sun much, though, so I think I’ll stay here. It makes my skin feel bad — makes it smell, too. Kinda like bad bologna. You know what that smells like?”
“Yeah, ‘fraid so. What brings you here?”
He shrugged. He was still a teenager, just a dead one. “I don’t know. You saved me, kind of. I mean, I got out of that place when you blew up the door. Found my way back into my body, I guess.”
“Ah. So they were sort of — holding you prisoner?”
“I guess. It’s all kind of confusing. One minute I was looking at the old haunted lighthouse, the next minute I’m in some kind of dark, windy place listening to these weird noises. It was like going to a really, really slow Day on the Green concert. On bad acid. Then a bunch of really weird stuff happened, and there was you, and an explosion, and…and I was back in here again.” He frowned and shook his lank hair out of his face. “But look what those doctors did to my body! I don’t even have blood any more.”
“Yeah, that can’t be fun.”
“Thing is, you’re leaving, right? You’re not from around here. I want to go with you. I already hated this place when I was alive. Can you imagine how messed up it’s going to be for me now I’m dead?”
I thought about it for a moment. “You know, I think the folks at the Bureau would be willing give you a place to stay, Rufi…Roof.” I nodded. “Just hang around for a little while, then Bayless can drive both of us. I’ve got a private Bureau plane waiting in Sonoma.” I smiled. “It’s not like you’ve got a lot of stuff to pack.”
“No,” he said seriously. “But there is one thing I gotta do first. Can you come along?”
“Where?”
“I need to say goodbye to my dad.”
You haven’t heard a houseful of drunken rummies scream until you’ve heard how these guys sounded when Roof showed up at his dad’s house in mid-party — bloodless, scalpless, and very obviously dead. The few who could keep their legs (and bladders, and sphincters) under control long enough to run outside all ran into me, which probably didn’t help their state of mind, either. Albie told me later that about half of of Bobby Gentle’s friends ran straight into to town after this life-changing experience and threw themselves on the mercy of Jesus, care of the nearby Monk’s Point Presbyterian Church.
“I told him he ought to get his act together,” Roof said as he rejoined me. I could see his dad lying slumped in the doorway of the house where he’d fainted, a beer still clutched in his fist. “I don’t think he’ll listen, though.”
“Don’t underestimate your powers of persuasion,” I said as I led him up (*) the driveway. I could hear some of the guests still shrieking inside. “You may have a future on the religious circuit, kid.”
I took him back to Albie’s place, and found him some duct tape so he could stick the top of his head back on until we could fix him properly back at the Bureau.
“Wow,” said Ted. He looked a little pale himself. “I mean…Jeez. That’s pretty… So what happened to the kid?
“He stayed with us for a couple of years. Worked a few missions for BPRD, but his heart wasn’t in it.” I smiled as I thought of Roof. He had been a slacker before the word existed — he had just happened to be a dead one. The last thing he wanted to do was spend his afterlife working an office job. “Last I heard, he was in Yakutata, Alaska, surfing year-round. He likes it ‘cause it’s real cold there, and nobody ever asks why he always wears a wetsuit.”
“And the Thursday Men?” asked Liz.
“Haven’t heard from them — or their woeful buddies. But I can’t help but worrying about it sometimes.”
“Why’s that?” Liz smiled at me. She thinks I think too much. She’s probably right.
“Well, if those two dimensions just happened to run smack into ours, what about the others? What about the rest of the days of the week? Why haven’t we heard anything yet from the Monday Men or the Tuesday Men?” I re-lit my cigar. “They’re probably here already, and we don’t even know yet. In fact, you could be one of them, Ted. It would explain your singing voice.” I slapped my hand on the table. “Now, who’s playing cards?”
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