Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

Xipe

Edward Lee

“Xipe” first appeared in The Barrelhouse: Excursions into the Unknown, Winter 1993, and later published in his collection The Ushers and Other Stories by Obsidian Books, May 1999.

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Edward Lee is the author of almost fifty books and numerous short stories. Several of his properties have been optioned for film, while Header was released on DVD in 2009; also, he has been published in Germany, England, Romania, Greece, and Austria. Recent releases include Bullet Through Your Face and Brain Cheese Buffet (story collections), Header 2, and the hardcore Lovecraftian books The Innswich Horror, Trolley No. 1852, Pages Torn From A Travel Journal, Going Monstering, and Haunter of the Threshold. Upcoming works include the novel Header 3, the Lovecraftian novella The Dunwich Romance, and the story collection Carnal Surgery. Lee lives in Largo, Florida.

The smile—vast, empty—oozed across the back of his mind. Pudgy hands reached out for him through a rain of blood.

Smith’s eyes snapped open. The ceiling was rushing past; he was flat on his back. Dark faces, like blobs, hovered over him. He heard casters squeal and bottles clink.

A voice, a man’s, exclaimed: “Desé prisa!” Smith had a pretty good idea he was going to die. The smile again, huge, empty—what was it? He closed his eyes and saw a muzzle flash, smelled cordite. He saw twin figures falling through dark. Then he heard a scream—his own.

A sign loomed: STAFF ONLY/PERSONAL UNICAMENTE. Doors parted clumsily. The gurney wheeled into a padded elevator, and at once the breathless, jagged motion ceased.

Images dripped back into his head: memories. Smith’s heart shimmied.

I was set up, he thought, astonished. That swine Ramirez, he must’ve turned. The guy must’ve gotten himself fingered and was trying to deal his way out. There’d been a fed in the room, hadn’t there?

More pieces fell into place: a clawing weight on his back, a window bursting, the unmistakable kick of a .38 full of hot loads. But Smith carried a Glock. Did I shoot a Justice agent tonight? With his own piece? And good luck to that scum Ramirez if he thought he could spin on Vinchetti’s network. Smith couldn’t remember a whole lot, but he was sure of one thing: Ramirez was dead.

The elevator hummed. Smith felt dreamy. “What hospital is this?”

“San Cristobal de la Gras, Meester Smeeth,” said the blurred doctor. “We are taking you to where you will be safe.”

Great, Smith mused. More Mexicans. But what could he expect down here? At first he thought they must be taking him to the jail wing, but then a nurse said in a warm whisper, “The government men do not know you’re here.” She squeezed his hand. “We will protect you.”

Smith felt exorcized. Vinchetti must’ve arranged this, must’ve paid off the right people to have Ramirez protected. Otherwise, Justice would be all over the place.

Thank God, he thought.

Then, in a jolt, he remembered the rest. The face behind the empty smile, and the name.

Xipe.

* * *

“It’s Xipe,” said the barkeep.

Smith was staring at the tiny stone figure which sat atop the register. It was black. It looked like a Buddha with a feathered headdress. Squatting, it held its arms out and smiled.

“What?” Smith said.

The keep, rail-thin, enthused in a thick Mexican accent. “Xipe protects the faithful. He is the Giver of the Harvest, the Seer of Beauty and Growth. He is the Great God of Good Will. Like your severed rabbit foot, Xipe brings luck.”

You look like you’ve had plenty, buddy, Smith concluded. La Fiesta Del Sol, like all the bars down here, was an erect dump. Sticky floors and walls, seamy light, jabbering Mexican music. A young G.I. fussed with two whores at a corner booth, but that was it. Ramirez always picked shithouses like this. Perhaps they reminded him of home.

Smith was Vinchetti’s coverman; he handled the southern region of what the feds called “The Circuit,” the mob-operated underground porn network. Vinchetti said the southern region grossed a couple of million per year, a far cry from what they’d been taking before the advent of VCRs and x-rated videos; but then they weren’t losing anything anymore, either. Nobody worked in loops and stills now; it was all video. A single 3/4-inch master could be duplicated a thousand times and sold to point-men for a thousand dollars apiece. From there they stepped on them any way they wanted, depending on the orders. In other words, the days of running truckloads of the stuff out of South Texas were long gone. Just a handful of masters kept The Circuit going for months. It was almost too easy, and risk free. Vinchetti’s plants in Justice, working with set-ups from Smith, gave the feds plenty of old stuff and overstock to seize, and a couple of wetbacks to bust. Justice thought they were effectively fighting underground pornography, while Vinchetti lost nothing and made millions per year. The net was even safer from the distribution end; everything was mail drops these days, coded mailing lists and untraceable names. Even Vinchetti didn’t know who most of his point clients were, and on rare occasions when Postal agents busted a point at a drop, Vinchetti skated because the points didn’t know who he was, either.

The stuff, of course, was all made on the Mex side; the states were too hot, unless you were pure-ass stupid like those Dixie Mafia lightweights or the Lavender Hill people. The Circuit dealt only in what the feds called “Underground”; real S&M, torture, snuff, and lots of kiddie. The fucking perverts stateside paid big money for “kp,” as much as three bills for a 20 minute double dupe, as long as the kids were white. Smith made the buys and had the masters muled to San Angelo; Vinchetti’s dupe labs took it from there. Smith saw no shame in what he did. Supply and demand—hey, it was a free country, wasn’t it? The only real worry was getting the masters across the border, and that was Ramirez’ problem. Smith didn’t know how the guy did it—he was either a very good mule, or a very lucky one.

Where the hell is he? Smith thought. Lapeto was a ghost-town, like any of the notorious Texas border stops, a grim meld of rapid babble, dark faces, and sneers. The pop was 99% Mex, half or more wet. All that kept these little pisshole towns alive were the EMs from Lackland and Fort Sam. The kids would come here, rent rooms, then cross over to catch the donkey shows in Acuña and Fuenté. For all Smith cared, the entire border could burn.

“I’ve never been robbed,” the keep said. He was drying glasses, grinning.

“Huh?”

“Never been robbed like other bars, never been shaken. Never problems.”

“Big deal,” Smith sputtered.

“Is Xipe. He is good luck.”

Idiot. Smith stared at the figure again. It smiled much like the keep, emptily. Smith didn’t believe in gods, stone or otherwise. Gods were bad for business. “Another,” he said, and hopped off his stool.

In the john, he scanned incomprehensible graffiti. Most of it seemed to lack Spanish extraction altogether. Xoclan, ti coatl. Ut zetl! Huetar, Coatlicue, ay! Me socorro! Someone had drawn a hummingbird eating the heads off stick figures. Smith grimaced and zipped his fly. A shadow swung behind him. He spun, shucked his Glock, and drew down …

But it was only a trinket swinging from the light. A black plastic figure with pudgy hands and a big, empty smile.

Xipe.

This place gives me the creeps. He couldn’t wait to get back to San Angelo and the real world. A little coke, a little pussy—enough of this wasteland. A slim figure in a smudged azure-blue suit sat stooped beside Smith’s bar stool. The head turned as if psychic, big white smile with a gold tooth, greasy hair, greasy face.

“Amigo,” Ramirez greeted. “How is my favoreet yankee?” He offered a pale hand, which Smith declined to shake.

“I’ve been waiting a fucking hour.”

“Hey, we Mexicans, we’re always late, isn’t that right?”

“Come on, we’ve got business.”

Ramirez nodded, grinning, and paid the tab. The gold-flecked grin seemed permanently fixed. He led Smith out, slinking like a junkie after a mainline.

The street stood empty. It stank of dust. A lone whore yammered at a couple of G.I.s getting out of a cab. She gazed at Smith once, then quickly looked away. The main drag wasn’t even paved; it was dirt, strewn with litter. Smith checked the alleys for tails, but only emptiness returned his glances.

“I have much good stuff for you tonight, Meester Smeeth.” Ramirez held the door for him at the motel. PARADISA, the neon sign glowed. Jesus, Smith thought. Dark lamps lit the lobby. Ridiculous felt prints of matadors and Spanish women adorned the stained walls. A greasily rouged fat woman tended the counter, hair in a black bun. From a shelf of curios, the tiny figure of Xipe smiled.

Smith frowned.

They mounted stairs which smelled of beer-piss and smoke. Ramirez’ room smelled worse. La Biblia rested on a nightstand, beside a stained bed. Used condoms stuck to the side of the wastebasket. Ramirez was zipping open a battered suitcase, but Smith’s gaze turned to the room’s only wall painting. The quetzl-feathered head on a plump, squatting body. Its arms outstretched as if to invite embrace. The smile huge yet empty.

“Xipe,” Smith muttered at it.

Ramirez looked up, grinning gold. “The Giver of the Harvest, who protects the faithful. The Great God of—”

“Good Will, I know,” Smith interrupted. Xipe’s eyes were empty as its smile, its fat hands empty. Perhaps it was the mode of the trinket’s emptiness that distressed Smith so. It seemed to him a kind of vitality—a knowledge—hidden deep beneath the black facade. An emptiness that somehow yearned to be filled.

“He brings luck, Meester Smeeth. He guards us from our enemies.”

Smith blinked. A shiver of vertigo, like standing up too quickly after a neat shot of Uzzo, seemed to transpose Xipe’s smile to a momentary hollow grimace.

Smith turned away. He didn’t feel good—bad beer or something. In dismay, he glanced down. “Jesus Christ, you bring the stuff in a suitcase?”

“My people, like yours, we pay.”

“You can’t buy every Customs officer on the line.”

“Of course not.” Ramirez grinned at Xipe. “The rest is buena snerte.”

“What?”

“Luck.”

Smith felt a chill. The painting distracted him. “How many masters?”

“Ten. New faces, all new stuff. And chiquitas—the best.”

Smith carried forty large. He was authorized to pay three grand per master, but only if the production was good. The way it worked, if the larger-formatted master wasn’t excellent, the second dupes would look piss-poor. Ramirez plugged the first tape into the VCR he’d set up on the dresser. Now came the grueling part, having to watch a sample of each. Smith steeled himself, crossed his arms, and addressed the screen.

His eyes bulged when the image formed.

He expected the usual phantom scenes: stark-lighted rooms, hollow-eyed children and sneering spic studs, women gagged and tied and jerking as fingers sunk needles into banded breasts. Instead he saw a grainy black and white of a man getting out of a car in front of a San Angelo warehouse.

The man was Smith.

Next: himself walking down the concourse at the Dallas/Ft. Worth air terminal. And next: himself giving Vinchetti’s Justice plant some pad and a list of phony bust points in a vacant Del Rio parking lot.

Ramirez’ gold grin glowed. “Good stuff, eh, Meester Smeeth?”

“You greaseball pepper-belly motherfucker!” But before Smith could even think about yanking his heat, a hammer cocked behind his head. Smith’s face felt huge as he turned. He was now looking down the barrel of a 3-inch S&W Model 13.

“Good evening. Mr. Smith. My name is Peterson. I work for the Department of Justice. I’m arresting you for multiple violations of Section 18 of the United States Code.” It was just a young punk, the “G.I.” in the bar. He gave Smith an empty smile. “Mr. Ramirez has given us enough documentation to send you up for thirty years. I want you to know that you have the right to remain …

The words melted. Behind him, Ramirez was giggling. All Smith could think was I’m not going down, over and over. Federal time on a kiddie porn rap was as good as a death sentence. He’d be “boy-cherry.” They’d turn him into a cellblock bitch in five minutes.

From the wall, Xipe smiled, seemed to lean over Peterson’s shoulder. Smith made his move. The half-second disarm he’d learned in the Army worked well enough; his hands snapped up, grabbed the revolver and Peterson’s wrist, and pushed. A round went off and burned a line across Smith’s scalp. Peterson’s wrist broke, and suddenly Smith had the piece. He squeezed off two Q-loads into Peterson’s chest. The kid crumpled beneath Xipe like a tossed offering.

Ramirez jumped on his back. Smith tried an elbow jab but missed. The Mexican was clawing at him, biting into his ear. The revolver hit the floor. Smith staggered back, screaming as his right ear was separated from his head between Ramirez’ teeth. The front wall diminished, yet the framed, grinning Xipe seemed not to; the empty smile followed him. Smith meant to slam Ramirez into the back wall.

Instead, he collided with the window, and the window gave.

It was nothing so trite as slow motion. Smith and his piggyback rider fell very quickly, but the hot night seemed to rise more than they seemed to fall. The street greeted them like a brick slammed down onto copulating frogs.

Something crunched, then collapsed. Smith rolled off Ramirez, who’d broken his fall. Was something looking down at them? Stupefied, Smith managed to stand, shuddering as he removed a long glass shard from his armpit and another from his belly. He was cut bad, but perhaps Xipe had brought him luck after all—Smith had risen from the two-story drop intact, while Ramirez lay crushed, organs punctured by cracked bones.

Smith caught an overhead movement, or he thought he did. He stared up. Was someone leaning out of the window, looking down at him? Maybe Peterson had had a backup man. Smith shucked his Glock, but when he lined up the three-dot sights, the window was empty.

Giggling bubbled at his feet. Ramirez spat out Smith’s chewed ear. Despite ruptured organs and a broken spine, the Mexican grinned, somehow, in glory.

“Looks like today is not your lucky day, Meester Smeeth.”

“Luckier than yours, bean-eater.” Smith pumped eight rounds of 9mm hardball into Ramirez’ head. The skull divided, as if trying to expel its contents. The gold-toothed smile froze emptily up at the night.

Smith limped away. Heads popped out of La Fiesta de la Sol. Curtains fluttered in lit windows; faces queried down. Several seemed to wear smiles like empty gouges, like cut-out masks.

Numbness throbbed where his ear had been. His breath rattled, and blood ran freely down his leg. He’d probably cut arteries, punctured a lung. Like a dimmer, his vision began to fade.

I’m losing it, he thought. I’m …

But, more good luck. The cab idled in the alley, as if expecting him. He fell into the back seat, slammed the door, consciousness draining in pulses.

“I’m bleeding like a fucking tap. Get me to a hospital.”

The cabbie turned, a blurred, vacant grin. “No hablo Ingles, señor.”

Smith peeled off a grand in ball notes from his roll. “Hospitala!” he attempted, throwing cash. “Pronto!”

“Anytheen you say, Meester.”

The cab pulled off into dust. Before Smith passed out, he sensed plump outstretched hands, a smile vast as a mountain rift. A plastic toy, like a kewpie doll, swung fitfully from the rearview.

Xipe.

* * *

Smith blinked from the gurney. They’d rushed him to an ICU. Around him stood a coven of hospital staff. Starched white uniforms and intent faces. A beautiful dark-eyed nurse patted his brow with a damp cloth, while another timed his pulse.

Am I dying? Smith thought.

“You are safe now,” said the doctor. “We have stopped the bleeding.”

But like a mirage, a man had risen from the corner. He wore a black suit, a white collar.

Smith gulped. A priest.

Indeed he was. He took Smith’s hand and asked, “Are you sorry for your sins?”

Smith felt plunged into darkness. “No, no,” he muttered. “Don’t let me die. Please …”

The holy man’s crucifix glittered in the light. He looked solemn and kind. He was holding a book.

“Are you sorry for your sins?” the heavy accent repeated.

But Smith didn’t hear the words. His eyes were busy, having at last noticed the incongruity of the priest’s silver crucifix. No Jesus could be found at the end of the chain—it was another figure, who wore a crown of quetzl feathers instead of thorns. Pudgy, dark hands bore no nails. The bottomless smile beseeched him.

“Xipe,” Smith whispered.

In Nahuati, the native language of the Toltecs, the priest began to speak. The knife he raised was not of steel but of flint. And from the book he commenced the recital, not the Catholic Sacrament For The Dying, but the Aztec Psalter of the Sacrifice, and the Great Rites of the Giver of the Harvest.

Smith’s heart beat like thunder in his chest.