LXII.
z a r a r e s c u e s a
g o l d f i s h f r o m a c r a z y
a x e - m u r d e r e r
—FIVE HAD A HABIT of waking at daybreak. He did so on this particular morning. He raised himself on an elbow and listened. The rain from last night had not returned. Dallas remained hot and miserable . . .
At eight o'clock a breeze had picked up but Five did not hear it. He was asleep again.
At nine-thirty he was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at his watch. His fingers touched the metal and he felt a little jolt of static electricity. His eyes shut for a moment, as if remembering something excruciatingly painful.
He said very quietly: "Nothing to do but get it over with."
At twenty-five minutes to ten he was tapping the closed door of Zara's room.
The latter opened it cautiously. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were still dim with sleep.
"Sleeping in, are we?" said Five affably. "I would've thought you'd know the importance of stopping the apocalypse by now."
Zara said shortly: "What's the matter?"
"The Commission's board of directors. I'm going to kill them."
He said I'm going to kill them as casually as a boy says I'm going fishing.
Suddenly conscious of himself, he stood up a little straighter and said: "You can come if you want."
"Come—to watch you kill a bunch of people?"
"Yes. Do you want to?"
Zara stared at him some more, then disappeared into the bedroom. The door shut in his face. He waited. His palms were sweating so he rubbed his hands on his shorts.
Then she came back with horse liniment from her first aid kit, and handed him the bottle silently. She informed him abruptly that it would help the bruise on his chest and that he must return it immediately to her in case she might come across a horse who needed it more than he did.
"Do you need the bruise stuff?" said Five. A little mark had formed on the hollow of her neck, dark like blotchy rouge. For a moment he wondered if she had been bitten by a wild animal after last night's fiasco. Then he realized. A lump formed in his throat. "Do you need it for—for . . ."
She tilted her head, and the mark become more visible. "For what?"
"For the—"
"Yes?"
"The—er, mark . . ."
"Oh, I see." She smiled. "You mean to ask whether I need the liniment for the bruise you left on my neck with your mouth immediately before you told me you feel nothing for me last night. Am I correct?"
He was uncomfortably aware that in some way Zara thought he had failed her, but he didn't know why she should think so, or on what basis she had judged him. She knew what he was; why was she upset?
As if she had read his mind, she sighed and said: "I'm not angry with you, Five."
Angry? He bristled inwardly at the statement. What did she have to be angry about? Five knew he would never hurt Zara. But Zara . . . he refused to delude himself into believing Zara would think twice about hurting him if she thought it necessary. She had nothing to be angry about!
"That's . . . good," he said.
"And anyway," she went on, "I can't will you into wanting me. It would be stupid to try. We may as well just be friends and leave it at that."
Force me! thought Five. How little she knew! But even as she said the words, he could see curiosity flicker across her face as she watched him, and he wondered—how much did she know?—how much did she guess? A sudden pang of fear struck him. Were even his own thoughts not safe from her? The thought was so disturbing he visibly shrunk from it.
Zara was looking at him now with the vaguest hint of pity in her eyes.
"Don't be sad about it, Five," she said gently, as if he was one of her snivelling little animals whom she was trying to console. "We're going to go back to the twenty-first century together, see? And then maybe one day, once all this is over, we'll be able to figure something out. That is what you want, isn't it?"
Yes, he thought silently. Yes. Yes. Yes.
A beat of silence elapsed between them.
Then he turned and left the room, leaving nothing behind for her but a curt: "Be downstairs in ten minutes."
For a moment, she leaned back against the closed door, sinking into the loneliness of the room, an eternity drawn out like a note on violin strings.
She closed her eyes and in the blackness that followed, she saw Five. She saw him in all his cold, impersonal glory. That was the way he would always want her to see him. But last night she thought she had seen something else . . .
Five—
(—who had said he felt nothing for her.)
Her hand went to her touch her neck, then her jaw, then her lips. It felt painful. Like adding salt to a blistering wound.
Zara opened her eyes. In front of her was the telephone, lying innocently on the bedside table. One call . . . one call and she would be free of this torture by tonight . . .
And if she did nothing? Then she would be tied forever to him . . . stuck like a fool with a daisy stalk . . . forever exclaiming, "He loves me, he loves me not!" over the last brown petal. No! Never!
Zara picked up the receiver and dialled a number. In a few rings she heard a voice at the other end.
"Ralph? Yes. It's Zara. I've decided. I want you to take me away from this horrible place. But we must leave soon."
. . .
—A BOY, A GIRL, and a parrot stepped off the final Greyhound at the Lonely Lodge Inn in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at a little past noon on the seventh of September, 1982.
After more than an hour of nonstop riding relieved only by Kiki's occasional commentary, Zara felt like a figment of her own imagination. It was cold. God was clearing His throat and spitting casual snow from a dirty grey sky. Zara had brought only a dress and, after some glaring and gesturing to her hickey, was able to procure Five's blazer, which she wrapped closely around her. But such clothes weren't nearly enough, and they made for the Inn hurriedly.
At the little lodge's front desk they were confronted by a smiling, strawberry-blond clerk of perhaps three hundred pounds. She wore a prim uniform and moccasins on her swollen feet.
Five and Zara went to the desk when she had her back turned and waited. She started upon seeing them.
"Uff da! You snuck up on me there. If you're looking for the cookies, we don't put 'em out 'til three." Her set of double chins quivered marvellously as she spoke.
"I like cookies," said Zara. She flashed a bright smile. "Surely you must have some lying around before three."
The woman's painted lips formed an 'O'. "Well, we can't do that, dearie—"
"Why not?" said Zara, still smiling. "You a cop?"
Five cleared his throat. "Uh, do you happen to know where the Midwest Soybean Society is meeting?"
"Muskellunge Banquet Room," the clerk said. "Are you looking for your mom? Is she in for the convention?"
"Something like that. Hey, can I get some change?"
The clerk fished some money out of her purse. She looked disapprovingly at Kiki. She didn't like parrots in her quiet lodge.
"Let me see . . . only a nickel and a couple of dimes . . . ah! You are in luck, mister."
"Don't talk nonsense," Kiki advised her. "Wash your hands, silly girl! How many times have I told you to shut the door? Poof. Gah!"
The clerk said nothing at all, but looked down her nose. She had never in her life been spoken to like that before—and by a parrot too. She was most irritated.
"One, two, three, GO!" said Kiki, and made the noise of a pistol going off. The clerk almost jumped out of her skin.
"Sorry about that," said Zara hastily, afraid that the clerk would turn them out. She tapped Kiki on the beak. "Manners, Kiki, manners. Shocking!"
"Shocking," repeated Kiki, in a mournful voice, and began to sniff in exactly the same way the clerk did.
They set off down the hallway.
"Happy Christmas," said Kiki to Five, every now and then. She had been taught to say happy returns, but it seemed she had Christmas on the brain.
"Thanks," said Five in return. "Happy New Year to you!"
"Oh, don't muddle her any more," said Zara. "See, there's a vending machine up ahead. That's what you wanted, right?"
"Yes," said Five, businesslike again. "That's exactly it."
He bent and examined the snacks vending machine, in which ten cents promised to buy him a peanut-stuffed chocolate whoopie pie. He put in two nickels. Nothing happened.
They waited.
The vending machine made a whirring noise, then the lights inside dimmed, and with a great clunk the machine promptly died on the spot.
Five stared at it. Irritation crossed him.
He jammed his thumbs into the buttons, then hit the little black keyboard, cussing out the dead hunk of glass and steel under his breath with such language that would make even the most foul of fishwives bow down in admiration.
"Stupid fudge nutter," he muttered. "Stupid mother fudge nutter! Fuckin' fudge nutter—"
Five kicked the vending machine. No result. He shook it angrily. One of the passerby coming down the hallway gave them a dirty look.
Zara cleared her throat awkwardly. "I've never seen this kid before in my life."
"Seriously?" said Five.
"What? You're losing your head over a vending machine, man. Cool your jets. There's no need to be a child about it."
"You'd better watch who you're calling a child," said Five indignantly. "Because if I'm a child, and you made out with me last night, you know what that makes you? A pedophile. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna be lectured by a pervert."
She rolled her eyes. "Look, just stay calm and assess the situation. It's no biggie."
"Oh, yeah?" He stepped aside magnanimously. "Here you go. If it's no biggie, then give it a try."
So she did precisely that. Crouching down, she stuck her arm into the bottom flap from where the candy would exit. Her hand reached up to the lowest shelf and fumbled around blindly. Ah! There it was. Target located. Yes, just a little further now . . .
Almost—Almost . . . There! She got it. She could feel the plastic wrapper in her hand. Carefully, she drew her arm out. Inch by inch. Carefully . . . carefully.
Her sleeve snagged on the bottom rack of Sour Patch Kids. She jiggled her arm. She tried twisting it. Then she dropped the fudge nutter and tried pulling her arm out, just like that.
No use.
Her arm was stuck.
Five smiled. "Is there a problem?"
"No. It's—I seem to have a slight predicament. Not a problem. A predicament."
"A predicament? I see. And are you willing to admit I was right and you were wrong and the vending machine is a vindictive piece of sh—"
"Are you kidding me? It's a machine! It's not out to getcha, you psycho!"
He scoffed. "You want psycho? I'll give you psycho. Wait here and don't tear your arm off until I come back."
"Wait here—? You can't seriously be thinking about leaving me stuck to the vending machine while you dice up my mother's cronies!"
Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. "Patience, Zara. Murder isn't a spectator sport."
"Have you not heard of the Colosseum?"
He shrugged and set off down the hallway, running his finger through the frosting on an innocuously placed birthday cake and sucking it off. "Sit tight!"
"Dang," whispered Zara to her parrot. "Remind me to buy some frosted cakes and place them innocuously around the apartment, Kiki."
"I heard that," he called, not looking back as he picked an axe off a stand labeled EMERGENCY USE ONLY and slung it over his shoulder.
"Well, I did say it out loud."
At the end of the hall was a set of doors leading into a conference room.
Zara moved as best as she could, straining her arm just as she strained her eyes to see ahead.
Five was approaching the doors. His grip tightened on the axe and the faintest of smiles crossed his face. Shadows wheeled and darted before the advancing light, skirting away from him as if they too were afraid to stand in his way. He pushed into the room.
The doors shut behind him. The lock flicked shut. Zara held her breath.
So began the massacre.
. . .
—THERE WERE TEN people in that room. One fish with the body of a human. One boy with an axe. Nine marked for death.
The killing spree began as they usually do. Screaming. Running. Pleading. All useless, of course. They could not escape.
They could not escape him.
In that moment he seemed to be not one boy, but many, moving together in a frenzy of blood and steel. The mob fell on its prey, one by one, and they disappeared like hares beneath a pack of hounds howling with bloodlust.
There was a frenzy of movement as Five swung and stabbed, arms rising and falling in deadly thuds, and then screams: they cried out but it was useless—there was no help for them here.
This victim—who was it?—he did not know. He did not care. He found a good lodging point for his axe and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight. The blade moved forward inch by inch until the terrified whimpering became a high-pitched scream of pure agony. A cracking noise. The skull split.
And it was not enough! Why did it have to end there? Why could it not go on forever?
He felt powerful—that was it! Powerful.
Everything was red. Pulsing and warm, wet and metallic on his face, on his hands. Trickling down his temple, smeared over his arms, splashed across his split knuckles, blinding him in its red-hot chokehold.
At last the euphoria subsided.
Five stepped back, taking great gasps of air as if he had just come up for oxygen. The bloody climax washed over him, leaving him heavy and fulfilled upon it. The axe dropped to his side. Now . . . he wanted more. A purer kind of pleasure.
Now he wanted to use his hands . . .
The fish bowl head of A.J. Carmichael peaked over the conference table. The terrified face of the goldfish peered at him from behind a thin sheath of glass.
Five smiled at him.
Just the two of them now.
Slowly, Five made his way over to the frail figure, alert for any sudden movements. But there were none—only begging—and that was white noise, splotches of pleas in the ocean of adrenaline that ran through his ears in deafening waves.
The fool. Did he think he might still escape? Clearly he was no more than an idiot. Anyone sane would know that Five—
With a shrieking yell, the plump clerk rose up swinging from behind and hit Five in the back, knocking him down, exposing him belly-up like a beast to be slaughtered.
"You're gonna pay for that vending machine, little mister!"
A red tide of anger and shock took possession of Five, running just before the pain, and he struggled madly under her grip.
The face of the woman was right up in his own, grinning its pitiful, incompetent little grin, breathing its foul breath directly into his nostrils. Then with all his strength, a tiny second ahead of his own incapacitation, Five brought his fist across her face. Her grin faded, drained like a water-bag emptying, and she fell over him in a dead-faint.
When Five at last pushed her limp body off him and struggled to his feet, A.J. Carmichael was long gone.
He snatched up the axe and ran out into the hallway, looking every bit a madman with bloody sleeves and hands smeared with red. The blood was everywhere. He looked to be anointed with it.
There was A.J., cowering behind Zara who was still stuck with her arm in the vending machine. Five came at him with the axe.
"Woah, woah, woah!" cried Zara. "What do you think you're doing? This is animal abuse, you fiend!"
"I've just killed an entire room of people, and you care about the fish?" demanded Five. "The fish?"
"But he's a goldfish, Five! See the sunlight glinting off his scales? Beautiful! Gorgeous! Look into those eyes and tell me you do not see the beauty and innocence of the natural world."
Obligingly, Five looked into A.J.'s eyes. He was a remarkably ugly creature. Even for a fish. And yet, if fish could blush, Five swore he was doing so at that very moment.
"Zara," Five groaned, "normally I'm all for your Girl Scout philosophy, but right now you really need to get out of the way so I can kill this thing!"
"He's a fish, Five! Granted, an evil sociopath, but still a fish. What happened to treat animals the way we want to be treated?"
"Killed without hesitation?"
"What? No!"
A.J. scrambled away from Zara and pleaded desperately before Five. "It's her, isn't it? The Handler? Whatever she offered you, I'll double it. I'll triple it!"
"We're not doing this for money," snapped Five. "Right, Zara?"
Zara was looking oddly at A.J., suddenly interested. "Er—how much did my mother offer you to kill the board, Five?"
"A trip home!"
"So let me get this straight," Zara said slowly, "you were the only person for the job, and . . . you didn't even try to ask for a raise?"
"It's not about the money!"
Zara glanced at A.J. with an air of superiority. "See?" she said. "This guy, am I right? Tell him how much you were getting paid as the Commission's prize assassin. Tell him, Five."
Five huffed in annoyance. "Look, they had a benefits package, and a pension, and more importantly they had access to time travel devices—"
"Yeah," said Zara sardonically. "A benefits package. Whoopee. Notice how there's nothing about a salary? It's ridiculous. You should sue for worker's compensation. You know, I barely showed up at work for twenty-five years and I assure you I was fairly paid."
"Every week?" asked Five.
"Yep."
"And I'm guessing you got it directly from your mother? In cash?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then that wasn't a salary, Zara. That was your weekly allowance."
"Oh." She paused. "In that case, we've both been screwed over. Never mind. We shall unionize. Vive la résistance!"
"Excuse me," said A.J., "I'm still here."
"Yes," pondered Zara. "That is a problem." She looked at Five. "I think we must compromise. If you get my arm out of the vending machine, I'll agree to look the other way in the matter of this lovely carp fellow."
"Great," said Five. "Thought you'd never ask." He reared back, and then, swiftly, swung the axe in a wide arc over his head and smashed it into the machine. The glass panel shattered instantly and split the steel base. The blade of the axe stopped half an inch above her forearm.
Zara yanked her arm from the vending machine's grip. "When I said 'get my arm out,' I meant with me attached to it."
"Did you?" Five clicked his tongue. "Should've specified."
She stood up and made a vague gesture toward A.J. Carmichael, as if to say: Get on with it. She turned her head so not to see what would happen next. As if this whole ordeal was, in some way, distasteful to her.
Funny, Five thought, how she pitied this despicable creature, but had no sympathy for him. His dislike for A.J. grew into something spiteful. The smile returned to his face.
"Surely we can come to some form of agreement that would benefit both parties," implored A.J. desperately. "Quid pro quo?"
"Why not?" said Five. "Here's your quid."
A.J. shrieked. The blur of motion of light and electricity was upon him, and, swiftly and savagely Five swung the axe in a wide arc and stabbed him in the side. The blade made a dull thwunk! as it sank in up to its hilt, and blood splattered out all over the front of Zara's dress.
"Here's your pro."
The figure sagged as the axe hit him again. He made no sound but a dull gurgling groan.
"And here's your quo."
This time Five went for the glass bowl encasing the head of the fish. The glass shattered, and from it bled stagnant water over which a little goldfish lay flopping on the floor.
Five stood back, panting. Sweat and blood streaked his face.
He reached into the broken glass of the vending machine and took out two candy bars. Then he held one out to Zara.
"Fudge nutter?"