Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

TWO

Tammy was indeed alive. She knew she was alive because she was hungry. It was the only thing about her present condition which she really recognized; the rest was a kind of fever-dream, filled with blurred horrors; remote pieces of what might be real and what she hoped to God was not.

She had been carried by her abductors to the far end of the Canyon, where there was no sign of any habitation. The area was pretty much jungle: dense thickets of barbed shrubs, overshadowed by stands of immense, shaggy palms. There was no way to climb up any of these trees, to escape those who'd brought her here (though even if she'd been able to do so, she was certain they would have sniffed her out); nor was there any way to move more than a few steps through the thicket. So she was left with only one option: she had to confront her abductors.

It was her mother's gift to her, this even-headedness. In circumstances that would have brought lesser minds to the point of collapse, Edith Huxley (Ma Edie to everyone who'd ever knew her for more than a day) had been uncannily calm. And the more panicky people around her became, the calmer she'd get. It made her an ideal nurse, which was the work she'd done all her life. She soothed the hurt, she soothed the dying, she soothed the bereft. Everything's fine, she would say in that soft voice of hers (another of her gifts to Tammy); and by some miracle everyone would believe her. Very often, because people believed her, the panic ceased and everything was fine. It was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

So now, sitting in the thicket, in the midst of this fever-dream, with its voices and its faces and its stink, she repeated Ma Edie's mantra to herself, over and over: Everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine, waiting for it to turn out true.

Her head still throbbed from the white light that had wiped out the world before her abduction; and her stomach was certainly in need of filling, but she still had all her limbs, for which she was grateful, and a voice in her throat. So, once she'd calmed herself down, she started to talk to whatever it was that had come after her (and was still there, in the vicinity), her volume quiet but her tone insistent enough that she would not be mistaken for somebody who was afraid.

"I'd like to get back to the house now," she said to them, "so will one of you please escort me?" She scanned the bushes. They were watching her. She could see the glitter of their eyes, the gleam of their teeth. What were they? They didn't seem quite substantial; she had the feeling that their flesh was not as solid as hers, as real perhaps; yet they'd possessed enough strength to remove her from the vicinity of Zeffer's cage to this corner of nowhere, so they weren't to be disrespected.

"Do you understand me?" she'd said, keeping her tone even. "I need to go back to the house."

Off to her left she saw a motion in the thicket, and one of the creatures approached her, coming close enough that for the first time she had a proper view of one of the abductors. It was a female, no doubt of that, and vaguely related to a human being. The creature's naked body was scrawny, her ribs showing through flesh that seemed to be covered with light gray-silver hair. The front limbs were extremely delicate, and she surely had hands and fingers, not pads and claws. But the back legs were as crooked as a dog's, and rather too large for the rest of her anatomy, so that when she was squatting, her proportions were almost frog-like.

But the head: that was the worst of her. Her mouth was nearly human, as was her nose, but then the skull curved and suddenly flattened so that her eyes, which were devoid of whites, and set to either side of the skull, like the eyes of a sheep, stuck out, black and shiny and stupid.

She turned her head and stared at Tammy with her shiny eyes. Then, from those human lips came the scraps of a voice. "It's no use to beg," she told Tammy. "We eat you."

Tammy took this in her stride; or at least did all she could to give that impression. "I'm not begging you for anything," she said, very calmly. 'And you're not going to eat me."

"Oh?" said another voice, this time over to her right.

Tammy moved slowly, so as not to invite anything precipitous. She looked at the second speaker, who—like the female—had come closer to her. She guessed this was a male; one of the creatures who'd snatched her away from between the cages. He had a head of ungainly size and shape, his nose flattened out like the nose of a bat, his mouth wide and lipless. Only his eyes were human; and they were unexpectedly and exquisitely blue.

"What shall we do with you then?" he said to Tammy, the slits of his nostrils flattening as he inhaled her scent.

"Help me," she said. The male lowered his lumpen head, and stared at her from under the weight of his brow. "I need to get back to the house," Tammy said.

"You know the Lady?" said the female.

"What Lady?"

"In the house?"

A third voice now; a thin, reedy voice in the darkness behind the female. "Kat. Ee. A.," the voice said.

"Katya?" Tammy said.

"Yes," said the male. "Katya."

He had come closer to her, and was now sniffing around her hair. She didn't protect herself, even though flecks of his cold phlegm were hitting her neck and face. She just kept her focus, as best she could. Perhaps these freaks, for all their bizarrity, knew something about why Todd was here. If she was going to free him she had to know what she was freeing him from.

"What do you want with Katya?" Tammy said, keeping her options open as to whether she knew the woman or not.

At the mention of Katya's name a series of little convulsions had taken over the female. She threw back her head, showing a throat as lovely as Garbo's. After a moment, the convulsions subsided. Once they were governed, the woman gave Tammy her answer.

"She is the one who has the Hunt."

There wasn't much illumination to be had from this. But Tammy pursued the questioning, not hoping for much. "What hunt?" she asked, keeping her voice low and even.

"The Devil's Hunt," said the male, still close to her.

"You seen it?" the female said.

"No," Tammy replied.

"Liar."

"If I'd seen it I'd tell you I'd seen it. But I haven't."

"You been in the house?"

"No I haven't," Tammy said. "Why, is this hunt you're talking about in the house?"

"The Hunt's in the house."

This part was even more puzzling than the earlier stuff. Plainly her sources were not terribly reliable. Were they referring to some sort of game that Katya played?

"Have you ever been in the house?" she asked them.

"No," said the female.

"But you want to go?"

"Oh yes," she said. "I want to see how it is."

"Well . . ." Tammy said. "Perhaps I could help you get in . . . to the house."

The female regarded her warily, moving her head back and forth to assess Tammy with both eyes.

"It's not possible," she said.

"Why not?"

It was the male who answered, and the phrase he used was powerful but incomprehensible. "Death at the threshold," he said.

There were mutters and growls from others in the undergrowth at the mention of the threshold. She had no doubt that for all their apparent strength these creatures were deathly afraid of the house, and, no doubt, of its mistress.

"Has this woman Katya done you some harm?" she asked the female.

The creature shook its wretched head. "Kill her one day."

"You want to kill her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The woman just stared, her stare containing a profound distrust. Not just of Tammy, or indeed of Katya, or of the world, but of being alive. It was as though every breathing moment was conditional; an agony. And despite the brutal foulness of the thing's appearance, Tammy felt some measure of sympathy for it.

"Maybe I could get this Katya to come out," Tammy suggested.

The male growled, deep in his chest. "You'd do that?"

Tammy was ready to make any promise right now, to get out of her present predicament. She nodded.

There was a long moment, in which the freaks did not reply. Then, glancing around the company of her fellows, as if to check that she would not be challenged, the female caught hold of Tammy's wrist, and pulled her up out of the thicket.

"We're going?" Tammy said.

"Yes! Yes!" the female replied. "Quickly, though. Quickly."

She didn't get any argument from Tammy, who was happy to be on her way. Whatever dangers the house held they could hardly be worse than staying out here in the open. The day was quickly passing away. It would soon be dark. And judging by the repeated glances the woman gave the sky, she too was cognizant of the failing light. After the third or fourth glance Tammy couldn't help but ask her what she was so nervous about.

"Peacock," she said.

A peacock? There had been peacocks here? It wasn't so surprising, on second thought. It fitted with the extravagance of the place. But they belonged on well-clipped lawns, not in this jungle of thorns and flowers.

And even assuming the bird could push its way through the thicket without being stripped of all its finery, what could it do if it did catch up with them? They had bad tempers, she remembered reading once, but they were nervous things. She'd just shoo it away.

"Nothing to be scared of," Tammy said.

The woman gave her another disconcerting sideways look. The male, meanwhile, came up beside Tammy and stared at her breasts. Not about to be intimidated, Tammy stared back. There was something vaguely recognizable in this freak; a cast to his features which reminded her of somebody famous. Who the hell was it? Some movie star. Was it Victor Mature? Yes, it was. Victor Mature. It was uncanny.

The lookalike, meanwhile, leaned forward, hooked a long, cold finger through a hole in Tammy's blouse and before she could do a damn thing about it, tore the light cotton blouse away from her skin.

"You keep away from me," she told the offender.

He bared his teeth at her. "Pretty boobies," he said.

"What?"

The forbidding grimace had transformed into a weird version of a smile. "Titties," he said.

He reached out and touched the side of her breast with his open palm, stroking it. "Jugs. Knockers—"

"Baby feeders," Tammy added, figuring it was better to play along with the joke, however witless.

"Fun bags," he said, grinning, almost moronically.

She wondered just for a moment if that was the answer to this mystery: that these pitiful remnants of humanity were cretins, mongoloids, retards; the children of Hollywood parents who could not bear the idea that they'd produced such freaks, and given them over to somebody who'd simply dumped them in the empty Canyon. No, that was ridiculous. Atrocities like that didn't happen in this day and age; it was unthink-ably callous. But it did go some way to explaining the curious passages of starry flesh and bone she kept seeing: Garbo's throat on the woman, Victor Mature in this breast-obsessed male.

"Udders," he said.

"Jigglies," she countered. "Chi-chis. Kazooms—"

Oh, she had a million. So presumably did every woman with larger-than-average breasts in America. It had started when she was twelve, when thanks to an unfortunate hormonal trick she was walking around with a bosom that would have looked just fine on a big-boned twenty-two-year-old. Suddenly men were looking at her, and the dirty words just came tumbling out of their mouths. She went through a phase when she thought every man in Sacramento had Tourette's Syndrome. Never mind that the girl with the hooters was twelve; men got diarrhea of the mouth at the sight of large breasts. She heard them called everything: "the twins," "skin-pillows," her "rack," her "set," her "mounds," her "missiles," her "melons," her "milk-makers." At first it upset her to be the object of fun, but after a while she learned not to listen to it anymore, unless some unusual name came along to swell the lexicon, like "global superstars," or "bodacious ta-tas," both of which had brought a despairing smile to her face.

Of course in two years' time all her girlfriends had got bosoms of their own—

"Wait."

The female had halted, its body suddenly besieged by nervous tics.

"What's wrong?" Tammy said.

The woman governed her little spasms and stood still, listening. Then pointed, off to her right, and having pointed she quickly bounded away, dragging Tammy after her.

As they fled—and that's what it was suddenly, fleeing—Tammy glanced back over her shoulder. They were not taking this journey unaccompanied. There was a contingent of freaks coming after them, though they were keeping their distance. But it was not the freaks, however, that the female was so afraid of; it was something else.

"What?" Tammy gasped. "What?"

"Peacock," the woman replied. She didn't speak again. She simply let go of Tammy's arm and threw herself into the cover of the thicket. Tammy turned, and turned again, looking for the creature that had caused this unalloyed panic. For a moment, she saw nothing; and all she heard was the sound of the female racing off through the thicket.

Then, almost total silence. Nothing moved, in any direction. And all she could hear was a jet, high, high above her.

She looked up. Yes, there it was, crawling across the pristine blue, leaving a trail of vapor tinted amber by the setting sun. She was momentarily enchanted; removed from her hunger and her aching bones.

"Beautiful," she murmured to herself.

The next moment something broke cover not more than ten yards from her.

This time Tammy didn't stand there mesmerized, as she had at the cages. She threw herself out of the path of the shape that was barreling toward her. It was the bizarrest of all the freaks she'd encountered. Like all its kin it had some of her own species in its genes but the animal it was crossed with—yes, a peacock—was so utterly unlike a human being that the resulting form defied her comprehension. It had the torso of a man, and the stick-thin back legs, scaly though they were, also belonged to a human being. But its neck was serpentine and its head no larger than a fist. Its eyes were tiny black beads, and between them was a beak that looked as though it could do some serious damage. Having missed her on the first assault it now turned around and came at her again, loosing a guttural shriek as it did so. She stumbled backward, intending to turn and run, but as she did so it raised its body up and she saw to her disgust that its underbelly was made exactly like that of a man, and that it was in a state of considerable arousal. The moment of distraction cost her dearly. She fell back against a blooming rhododendron bush, and lost her footing in a mist of pink-purple blossom. She cursed loudly and coarsely, grabbing on to whatever she could—blossom, twig, root—to haul herself up. As she attempted to do so she saw the creature slowly lower its sleek turquoise head, and one of its scaly forelimbs—withered remnants of arms and hands—went to its chin, where it idly scratched at a flea.

Then, while she struggled like an idiot to get back on her feet, the creature lifted up its backside and spread its glorious tail. By some quirk of genetics, it had inherited its father's glory intact. The tail opened like God's own fan, compensating for every other grotesque thing about the beast. It was beautiful, and the creature knew it. Tammy stopped struggling for a moment, thinking perhaps she could talk some sense into this thing.

"Look at you," she said.

Was there brain enough in that little skull to understand that it was being flattered? She frankly doubted it. But the creature was watching her now, its head cocked to one side. She kept talking, telling it how fine it looked, while tentatively reaching around to find a branch large enough to carry her weight, so that she could pull herself to her feet. The creature shook its tail, the feathers hissing as they rubbed against one another. The iridescent eyes in their turquoise setting shimmered.

And then, without warning, it was on her. It moved so suddenly she didn't have a chance to clamber out of its way. She fell back into the blossoms for a second time, and before she could raise her arms to ward it off, the peacock came down against her body, trapping her.

She felt its erection against her body, and its wizened hands clawing at her breasts. Its beak snapped above her face, threatening her eyes.

For a moment she lay still, afraid of what it would do to her if she resisted it. But then it began to thrust its hips against her, and a spasm of revulsion overcame her better judgment. She reached up and caught hold of the thing's neck, just below the head, her fingers digging deep into its blotchy, corrugated flesh. Even so, it continued to grind its body against her. She raised her other hand to join the first, and started to strangle the thing. Still it pumped on, as though so stupefied with lust it was indifferent to its own jeopardy. She pressed hard on its throat, closing off its windpipe. Its grindings continued unabated. She pressed harder, and harder still. Then it seemed to reach a point of no return, and a series of shudders passed through its body. She felt something wet spurting on her belly, where its rhythms had pushed up the rags of her blouse.

"Oh God," she said. "You filthy, dirty—"

Its climax over, it belatedly seemed to realize that it couldn't breathe and started to thrash about. Its claws raked her breasts, which stung like fury, but she refused to let go of its scrawny throat. If she gave it an inch it would surely kill her. Her only hope was to dig deep and hold on until the thing lost consciousness.

But it was easier said than done. The bird's orgasm hadn't exhausted its energies. It thrashed maniacally, beating its stunted wings against the blossoms, so that a blizzard of pink petals came down upon them like confetti. Tammy kept her teeth and her hands locked together, while the would-be rapist's panic became a frenzy. It was making ghastly, guttural noises now, its mottled tongue sticking straight out of its mouth. Spittle fell on her upturned face, stinging her eyes. She closed them, and kept on clutching, while the peacock clawed and flapped and thrashed.

The struggle had already gone on for three or four minutes, and her strength was giving out. The pain from her scratched breasts was excruciating, and her hands were numb. But by degrees the bird's rallies lessened. She didn't relax her grip on it, however, suspicious that if she did so, it would recover itself somehow and renew its attack. She held on to its silken throat while its wings slowed their moronic flapping. She opened her eyes. The expression on the creature's face suggested that it was close to death. Its tongue lolled against its lower beak. Its gaze was unfocused. Most telling of all, its glorious tail had drooped to the dirt.

Still she held on, pressing her thumbs hard against its windpipe until every last twitch had gone out of it. Only then did she let go; not with both hands, but with one, and started to pull herself up from beneath the body of the creature. She felt its semen cold on her belly, and her own blood hot on her breasts. A fresh wave of repugnance passed through her. But she had survived; that was the point. This creature had done its worst, and she'd overcome it. Grabbing hold of a branch she pulled herself to her feet. The peacock hung from her hand, its body sprawled on a bed of fallen blossoms. A spasmodic rattle passed through its gleaming tail feathers, but that was the last of it.

She let it go. It dropped to the ground, its head resembling some absurd little sock puppet that its owner had abandoned in the grass; the rest of its body a grotesque amalgam of forms.

"I killed you . . ." Tammy said softly. "You sonofabitch."

She lifted her gaze and surveyed the bushes around her. All this had been witnessed, she knew; the creatures that shared this beast's grotesque tribe were all out there in the twilight, watching their battle. She could not see those who were scrutinizing her, not even the gleam of a tooth or eye, but she knew they must be thinking twice about attacking her. On the other hand, she was seriously weakened. If they were to launch such an assault she would be lost; her energies were all but spent.

She looked down at her bosom. Her blouse was in rags and her skin had been deeply scored by the freak's claws. She touched the wounds. They stung, but the blood would soon start to clot. She wasn't a bleeder, luckily. But she was going to need something to clean the wounds if they weren't to become infected—God knows what kind of shit and dirt the creature had had beneath its claws—which meant finding her way, as quickly as possible, back to the house: to clean running water and fresh dressings.

But there was one other matter to deal with before she moved from this place: a bit of cleaning up that couldn't wait until she had water. She picked up a fistful of grass, and wiped her belly, removing as best she could the remnants of the creature's semen. It took more than one fistful to do the job; but when she had cleaned herself (and then cleaned her hands with a third portion of grass) she left the body where it lay, and went on her way.

She listened, as she went, for the sound of pursuit: the rustle of leaves, the snapping of twigs. But she heard nothing. Either the rest of the freakish clan had decided she was too dangerous to pursue, given that she'd just slaughtered one of their more fearsome members, or else the game of pursuit no longer amused them and they'd gone back to whatever crimes they committed in the stinking darkness.

Tammy didn't much care.

As long as they left her alone, she thought, they could do what the hell they liked.