The Unnoticeables E-Book

Robert Brockway

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 375

Beschreibung

In 1970's New York City, all Carey wants is to drink cheap beer and dispense ass-kickings, until kids with unnoticeable faces start abducting his punk friends. In present-day Hollywood, stuntwoman Kaitlyn is trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life when a former teen heartthrob tries to eat her and her best friend goes missing. The survival of the human race is in Carey and Kaitlyn's hands. We are truly screwed.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Robert Brockway

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Coming Soon from Titan Books

ALSO BY ROBERT BROCKWAY

Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity

You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News (from the editors of Cracked.com)

Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody

The UnnoticeablesPrint edition ISBN: 9781783297979E-book edition ISBN: 9781783297986

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: July 20152 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Robert Brockway asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.Copyright © 2015 by Robert Brockway. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To everybody who told me I was wasting my teenage years by drinking, going to punk shows, and reading comic books: Thank you for being so hilariously wrong.

ONE

Unknown. Unnamed.

I met my guardian angel today. She shot me in the face.

I’m not much for metaphor. So when I say “guardian angel,” I don’t mean some girl with big eyes and swiveling hips who I put on a ridiculous pedestal. I mean that she was an otherworldly being assigned by some higher power to watch over me. And when I say “shot me in the face,” I don’t mean she “blew me away” or “took me by surprise.” I mean she manifested a hand of pure, brilliant white energy, pulled out an old weather-beaten Colt Navy revolver, and put a bullet through my left eyeball.

I am not dead. I am something far, far worse than dead. Or at least I’m turning into it.

Here’s something I found out recently:

The universe is a problem. Again, I’m not much for metaphor. I meant what I said: The universe and everything that lies within it is a problem, in the very technical sense of the word. There are many parts to the universe—too many, in fact—which means that there is a simpler way to express the concept of “universe.” There are extraneous parts in every single object in existence, and to do away with them is to compact the essence of the universe into something leaner and more efficient. The universe and everything in it is a problem. And that means that the universe and everything in it has a solution.

Humans also have extraneous parts: Think of the appendix, the wisdom teeth, the occasional vestigial tail—there are parts of us that we simply don’t need. They clutter us. We can be rid of them altogether. But that’s just physical stuff. There are also fundamental elements of what we are inside—spiritual, psychic, psychological, what have you—that are being expressed inefficiently. Our parts are too complicated. They can be reduced. They can be solved.

Human beings have a solution.

And being solved is a terrible goddamned thing.

The exact methods vary from person to person. My solution? A .36 caliber lead ball through the pupil while sitting cross-legged on a bed in a Motel 6, watching a rerun of Scooby-Doo.

I’ve always been a simple man.

I guess I’m about to get a whole lot simpler.

Before this thing takes me completely, I need to tell you a story. But I’m having trouble starting. This is how it goes, or how it went, or how it will go. I’m having a hard time with time: That’s the first step to the change, Yusuf told me—losing your chronology. Where did it start? With her? With me?

I can’t remember why the start should even matter. Quick, let me tell you about Carey….

TWO

1977. New York City, New York. Carey.

“Hey, fuck you,” I said to Wash as I passed him. He was huddled in a little ball at the edge of the booth. I mussed his hair up, making extra sure to jiggle his head about while I did it. I could hear him throw up into his own shoes as I made the door.

Told him not to take those off in the club.

The New York City air was a goddamned bathtub. It was eighty degrees outside at one o’clock in the morning. Inside the club was worse, though. In there, you had to breathe the accumulated sweat of a hundred drunken punks. A thin puddle of beer evaporated beneath your feet, found nowhere to go in the already damp air, and eventually settled onto your eyelashes.

I’ve got the beerlashes. Shit. Who has cigarettes? Debbie has cigarettes.

“Debbie!” I hollered straight out into the street as loud as I could, in no particular direction. I waited for an answer.

“Shut the fuck up!” a female voice answered. Didn’t sound like Debbie.

Two teen girls stood by a busted-open newspaper machine, drinking something distinctly beer-colored out of a Coke bottle. Too cute to be part of the scene. Aw, look, they did their mascara up all thick. Punk fucking rock.

“If you gimme a cigarette, I might consider letting you suck my dick,” I told the blond one with the patches on her denim jacket.

They laughed and said a bunch of words that weren’t “Here’s a cigarette,” so I left. I crossed the Bowery and headed up Bleecker, to the old wrought-iron fire escape where we hid emergency drinks from the parasites.

And I found the parasites there. With the drinks.

Parasites: the young kids who milled about outside the shows, too chicken or too broke to slip past the doorman. Occasionally they lucked into some weed or some smokes, and they were always eager to impress, so they were generally tolerated, like fleas or acne. But this was a step too far: They’d found the goddamned beer cache! They saw me coming and turned at once, like a bunch of prairie dogs spotting the shadow of a hawk.

“One of you has a cigarette for me,” I told them, not asked.

The little guy with the Elmer’s-glue spikes fumbled in his pockets like I’d told him there was a loose grenade in there. He practically threw a Camel at my face.

I pulled my Zippo and did that Steve McQueen shit, where I snapped it open and scraped the flint across my jeans to light it in one smooth motion. Ladies love it; men fear it.

Too bad I was out of fluid. Somebody laughed.

“You fuckin’ parasites!” I hollered, turning to round on them with all the righteous fury of a man cheated out of a beer stash. But Jezza was standing there instead, looking like an empty jacket draped over a chair.

“Easy, mate! Yer scarin’ off all the lovelies!”

“Light, Jezza?”

“First he calls me a parasite, then he wants me lighter?” Jezza mimed outrage to a plain-looking girl in glasses and a scuffed-up flannel shirt.

God damn it: You sold our beer stash out for parasite ass?

“I will ruin your night right now unless you get me fire.”

“Well, he’s all piss and vinegar, innit he?” Jezza said to Scuffed Flannel. She laughed. Utterly fucking charmed, I’m sure.

“Jezza, god damn it, you’re not British. He’s not British.” I looked Scuffed Flannel in the eye. “And the only English movie he’s seen is Mary Poppins, which is why he talks like such a prick.”

“Oi!” Jezza protested.

“Jezza, God love you, man, but you sound like a fucking cartoon penguin. Knock it off. Your mom’s from Illinois.” I turned back to Scuffed Flannel and said, “His name’s Jeremy.”

“You asshole, Carey! Why do you always gotta blow it for me?” Jezza whined. “The girls love the accent!”

“Girls? Jesus, man. You’re making things complicated.” I looked and saw Debbie’s flashy, tinfoil-colored hair across the street, just coming out the door.

“Here,” I said, stealing the beer can from Jezza’s hand, “this is how you do it: HEY DEBBIE!”

She turned, looking for the source of the voice, but it was too dark and there were too many people.

“DEBBIE, DO YOU WANT TO SCREW LATER?” I hollered.

“ARE YOU ANY GOOD?” she yelled back, still not spotting me.

“YOU’VE HAD WORSE.”

“ALL RIGHT, THEN,” she answered, laughing, and turned back to talk to her friends.

Jezza looked like somebody had pooped in his cornflakes.

“Told you I’d ruin your night. A man asks for a lighter, you give him a goddamned lighter,” I said, and jogged back across the Bowery, up behind Debbie. I grabbed her hips and she squeaked.

“Got a light for your friendly neighborhood sex god?” I whispered into her hair, which, like everything else coming out of the club, smelled like an old undershirt.

“Aw, hell. That was you, Carey? I thought you said I’d had worse.”

She had that sass in her voice that said she’d found something stronger than beer.

Debbie handed over the lighter, and I flicked it on. I wrapped my hand around it, shielding the precious flame, then put it in my pocket when she glanced away. All’s fair in love and lighters.

Wood chips and truck-stop coffee filled my lungs. I fucking love you, Carl P. Camel, inventor of the Camel.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I won’t stick you unless you get me stoned,” I whispered to her.

I couldn’t tell if I was being devastatingly clever or if the beer was finally starting to kick in. Either way, she bought it.

“Come out back in five,” she replied, and I let her drift back to the conversation.

For the moment, for just that one little moment, I didn’t need her. I didn’t need anybody. I wanted to worship at the musky pyramid temple of Camel cigarettes. I wanted to drop to my knees and inhale nothing but smoke until I burned up inside and flaked away like old paper. The cigarette asked about its old friend, beer, and I reintroduced the two. Jezza’s can was warm and probably half spit, but it was ice-cold Yoo-hoo compared to the asphalt-flavored air of a New York heat wave.

Hey, there’s Randall! I should kick him in the knee.

“Randall!” I screeched, getting two big running lopes and knocking his knees inside out.

“God damn it, Carey!” he said, then he tried to get his feet and nail me, but I danced away. A car honked, mad that I was in its precious street. Me and Randall gave it synchronized middle fingers and forgot all about fighting, to become a united front of Fuck You, Guy in Car.

“You like the band?” I said, nodding toward the club.

“Television? Pretentious bullshit,” Randall said through a mouthful of chaw and then spat hot garbage water onto the sidewalk.

Everything was pretentious bullshit to Randall. I wasn’t sure he actually knew what the term meant—he once called my chicken-fried steak “pretentious” because it came with gravy on the side.

“Sure, sure, but do you like ’em?” I inhaled the rest of my cigarette in a big crackly, flaring burn.

“Hell, yeah,” said Randall, “they’re my favorite band.”

I gave Randall a sideways look, then released a fucking monumental cloud of smoke. I breathed storm clouds; I shot black soot like a dragon; I exhaled the entire Los Angeles motherfucking skyline. Randall coughed and sneezed and shut his eyes.

I took the opportunity to bolt. When he looked up, I was gone. Vanished in a puff of smoke. He spun around, looking for me, but didn’t spot me down there, peering around the broken newspaper machine. That would fuck with him all night.

I waited until he turned around, and I crab-walked through the growing crowd around the door. When I was safely out of sight, I downed the rest of my beer and jogged around the corner to see what drugs Debbie had for me tonight.

When I got there, most of her face was gone. She was making a wet slurping sound with what was left of her mouth, and her balled-up fists were drumming the pavement like a broken windup toy. Something big and black stood over her, flowing like a waterfall. Its head was pouring out of where its shoulders should have been, oozing down and over Debbie’s chest like fresh tar. Where it touched her, flesh sizzled and flowed away, running down her body like plastic. I must have said or done something then, because it started to retract. It reversed flow, sucked back up into itself, and became something vaguely man-shaped. Its skin shimmered like polluted grease. There were two gleaming brass gears where its eyes would have been. They interlocked and began to spin. The whirring increased pitch and became a scream. It took a step toward me.

“Fucker!” I said, and hucked my empty beer can into the vaguely humanoid mound of acid sludge that was melting my friend. It bounced off the thing’s forehead and clattered away down the alley. “She was gonna put out!”

Stop.

That’s a shitty thing to say, I know. I liked Debbie. I genuinely did. She wasn’t just pussy to me; she was a friend first. She thought Monty Python was the funniest thing on the planet. She picked the cheese off of her pizza but still ate it. That’s just how she liked things: crust and cheese as separate entities. She could do a perfect—and I mean fucking flawless—circus-caliber cartwheel, no matter how drunk she was. And yet the first thing I said when I saw her dying was dismissive and sexist and just all around shitty. I know. But here are some qualifiers:

First, when you put up an apathetic, angry shell for long enough, the behaviors you thought were mostly an act start to become your reality.

In other words: If you train yourself to respond like a dickhead in most situations, you find yourself responding like a dickhead in most situations.

Second: I was really, really god damn hard up.

I lived in a small apartment with three other punks. On any given night, one or two of them will probably bring home a few buddies who’ll also pass out on our floor. I’m not a gentle lilac, budding only under the most delicate of circumstances; I don’t mind people knowing I’m whacking it. But my ratty, threadbare thrift-store cot was right next to the bathroom, and every time I’ve tried to masturbate for the last three months, somebody puked right next to my head before I got a chance to finish. It was starting to get Pavlovian: I got half a hard-on every time somebody dry-heaved.

And finally, I should clarify: I wasn’t in shock. I had seen these things before. At least half a dozen times over the past few years. A lot of us had. They seemed to be coming after the gutter punks, the homeless, the junkies: Anybody that spent a lot of time fucked up in dark alleyways knew about the tar men.

But all excuses aside, what I said about Debbie was selfish and callow. That’s the plain and simple of it. If it makes you feel any better, they were probably going to be my last words.

The dull brass gears in the sludge monster’s face were spinning faster and faster. The whine was reaching an agonizing pitch, like a jet engine mixed with a rape whistle, and it was, impossibly, getting louder. I turned to run, but the noise was doing something to my inner ear. My balance was shot. I dropped to my knees. Tried to cover my ears. No difference. The tar man was approaching, slow but steady. And my stupid, useless legs were ignoring me.

I could see it clearer now. It wasn’t entirely black. It shimmered in the light, like the surface of a greasy puddle. Charred bits of Debbie’s flesh still clung to it here and there. They were cooking. Melting and running away in soft pink rivulets. I could smell it. Smell her. The harsh chemical stink of crude oil mixed with burning steak.

Four paces. Three. I couldn’t stand. Could barely move. I reached into my pocket. I pulled out the lighter I’d snaked from Debbie earlier. I flicked it open. I struck the flint against my jeans, and not even checking to see if it had caught, I flung it in front of me. I’d like to tell you I said a little internal prayer, but all I was really thinking was “fuckfuckfuckfuckfu—”

I felt a sharp intake of air rush across my skin, then a harsh, burning expulsion. I was thrown backward, and scrabbled away from the flaming thing like a wounded spider. The tar man’s screaming gears faltered and caught. They whined, paused, jammed, and then flung themselves sideways out of its face. The fire raged harder and faster by the second. The sound was like a train engine spooling up. Higher, deeper, louder; higher, deeper, louder—and then, thankfully, silence.

When I finally pried my eyes open, half afraid that I’d find them burned shut, the tar man was completely gone. Just a greasy smudge and two round brass gears on the pavement.

I felt around my arms and face. My skin was sore all over, like a bad sunburn, but there didn’t seem to be any major damage. I considered a cigarette, looked at the oily spot still steaming to my left, and considered again.

I bent and picked up the two singed gears, oddly cool to the touch, and put them in my back pocket.

“Ha, motherfucker!” I spat on the smoking stain. “I’ll wear your eyes for a trophy.”

I went to check on Debbie. I had assumed the worst, from the way she’d been twitching when I first showed up. I assumed right.

I said a quiet good-bye and left the alleyway. Please don’t tell anybody I pilfered the cigarettes out of her purse before I did.

When I got back out front to the show, the punks were filtering inside, the sound of the next band’s guitars already clamoring into the street. Butts were being stomped out, beers were being downed, fresh air was being gulped desperately, and life was going on. I thought about going in with them—about dancing or drinking or doing some damn thing or another to forget for a few hours what I’d just seen, but the thought of all that heat and sweat turned me off.

Our pad was miles gone and I didn’t feel like walking, but I recalled stashing Daisy about five blocks from here a few weeks ago. If she was still around, she’d get me home. I turned to leave, then Randall popped up from behind a newspaper machine, screamed, “GOTCHA, FUCKHOLE!” and slapped me hard across the cheek.

My burns flared to angry, visceral life.

THREE

2013. Los Angeles, California. Kaitlyn.

For the first time in a long time, I woke to find myself not in pain. A cold flood of fear washed through me. It ran down my chest and settled in my gut. I couldn’t remember why waking up without pain was supposed to worry me. The reaction was just instinctual.

I lay in my massive, ridiculously soft bed for half an hour. A king-size memory-foam mattress that fills every single inch of my tiny bedroom, and an accompanying six-hundred-dollar down comforter are the only great and stupid luxuries that I allow myself. I was trying to figure out where the anxiety was coming from, and I finally pinpointed it: I was not sore, bruised, burned, or broken at all, and that meant I was unemployed.

At least partially. I still had my job waiting tables, but I hadn’t done any stunt work in weeks. I guess sometime during the night, I finally shook the last stubborn bit of stiffness in my hip from that botched somersault I took while shooting The Damned Walk … Again!? So I woke up feeling physically great but with a trade-off of crushing spiritual ennui. For almost this entire month, I had been just and only a waitress.

I sighed and rolled out of bed. I had to roll several times just to reach the doorway and then heave myself out into the hall. My bare feet slapped the cold tile all the way to the bathroom. When I sat down to pee, it really hit me:

I was in absolutely no pain.

Even as a little girl, I would wake up each morning with a very small but persistent ache in my third pinky. Yep. Third. I have six fingers on my left hand. The superfluous little bastard has hurt me every day of my life, except for two: the day when my kid sister died in a house fire, and today.

I couldn’t remember anything about the day of the fire. The therapists said I’d repressed the memories, but every once in a while I got this feeling, like terrified déjà vu, and I just knew it was some small piece of that day coming back to me. I had that feeling now, when I suddenly remembered, in perfect clarity, waking up with no pain in my sixth finger fifteen years ago. I remembered running down the stairs to tell my mom.

It doesn’t hurt anymore! It’s all gone!

My mother laughed, picked me up, and placed me on top of the dining room table.

“Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?” she asked.

I shook my head and wiggled my skinny, single-knuckled little digit for her.

“That’s great, baby!” she said.

And that’s where the memory kicked out. Nothing past it, just a pleasant little short film and then fin. But I still had this sick fear that wouldn’t shake loose from the bottom of my stomach. Something bad happened after that moment, I knew that much, but whenever I tried to think of the specifics, I could only picture a bright, colorless light and notes of toneless music. Memories defined by their absence.

I flushed the toilet, turned the shower up as hot as it went, and stood under it until the heat made me dizzy and pink. I slid the curtain aside and grabbed for my towel. I was so dazed from the warmth, I almost didn’t notice the face staring at me from the other side of my window. I clutched the towel tightly against me, and instinctively screamed.

Jesus, just like some ditzy horror-movie starlet.

To my credit, the involuntary yelp only lasted a second. The tirade of increasingly detailed obscenities lasted for much longer. The face disappeared instantly, ducking away in terror. I barely had time to register a set of puffy red cheeks, greasy stubble, and glazed little eyes beneath a ratty green beanie. Still dripping wet, I threw my jeans and T-shirt on, slipped into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed the biggest kitchen knife I could find, and stormed out of my front door.

Mrs. Winslow, the nice lady that lives on the second floor, who, thanks to a series of misunderstandings, thinks I’m some sort of raging psychopath, gave me an odd look as I sprinted past her, soaked, swearing, and brandishing a butcher knife over my head.

Add that to the list, I guess.

I kicked open the main gate to my apartment building, scaring a little white Chihuahua tied to the side mirror of a brand-new silver Ferrari.

Los Angeles.

I rounded the corner toward the side of the building where my bathroom window looked out, and saw the Peeping Tom.

“Oh, this is a bad day to be a pervert,” I said, advancing upon him, twirling my knife in tight little circles. “I hope you liked my tits, buddy: They’re the last things you’re ever going to see. I hope my tits keep you warm in hell.”

He wouldn’t turn around. His back was convulsing oddly, and he was taking quick little breaths.

Oh, God, was he …? Of course he was.

I took a step. Another. I wasn’t sure where I was going with this: I was pissed off, true, but I wasn’t “stab a hobo” pissed off. I didn’t have a plan, but that didn’t seem to matter. I was still holding a kitchen knife and approaching a masturbating bum in a dead-end side yard off Pico. Surely the situation would work itself out somehow.

I was just within stabbing range and felt the moment was coming to its head. I wasn’t going to knife the guy, but I was at least going to have to say something. Maybe cut him a little, just to keep him on his toes. I opened my mouth to speak, then the hobo’s stained canvas jacket abruptly ceased its bouncing. His rapid breathing halted. We were both still for a long moment, then he slumped to one side with a sickeningly fluid motion. I saw that one hand was covered in some kind of cancerous-looking sludge. It stank like burning plastic and flowed slowly outward from his body in a thick, rapidly congealing pool.

And just past him, shimmering in the air, was an angel.

I instantly knew it for what it was. I had seen one before, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t recall where or when. The angel was an intangible blur of pure luminescence, but within it, barely glimpsed fractals and impossible angles rotated, shifted, adjusted, and disappeared. The radiant blob was bleeding all color out of the world around it. The spaces surrounding the light were colorless. Wan and oversaturated. It was too bright to see, but also too bright to look away. The deeper I gazed into the heart of the angel, the more I became aware of a sound. It was almost too subtle to hear, but the second I noticed it, it became deafening. There was an orchestra of reverberating chimes harmonizing over a dull, roaring static. It was like a thousand beautiful voices singing to drown out a million more screaming. I blinked and the sound stopped. I opened my eyes and it came raging back.

Waves of nausea and panic washed through me. I dropped the knife, and the angel sharply adjusted its focus. I couldn’t pick out individual movements, but it seemed to be intent on the knife now, like it hadn’t noticed the blade before. It suddenly appeared above the knife. I backed away reflexively and lost a flip-flop to a patch of mud beneath a leaking garden hose.

Before I could blink, it was there in front of me again, now focused on the sandal.

I turned and ran, and somewhere far behind me, I heard a crackling, sucking noise, as if some large, tacky mass was being scraped up from the ground.

I had a brief, scattershot flashback. Just still images. Polaroids taken of memories: torn little slippers with Corvettes on them. The taste of purple left on the wooden stick after the Popsicle was gone. My sister screaming. Flames on a set of paisley curtains. A noise like stepping on fleshy chewing gum.

I had heard that sound before.

FOUR

1977. New York City, New York. Carey.

The cops said Debbie tried to light a cigarette and her wig went up in flames. That’s how she died. Officially speaking.

Were cops this fucking stupid everywhere, or was it just in New York City?

I was trying to drink away the anger, but the parasites had been out in force ever since Jezza hooked up with the blond girl in the scuffed flannel shirt. They were not helping ease my jangled nerves.

“Like this?” the kid with the Elmer’s glue holding his hair into little spikes asked another.

“No, it’s more bouncy,” the other parasite, a pretty young thing with safety pins in her ears, corrected him, hopping up and down.

She was trying to teach him some kind of dance. It was apparently the punk thing to do now, this hopping up and down. She bounced for a few seconds, her tits heaving every which way.

“Like this?” Elmer Spikes asked again, shuffling from foot to foot like an angry ape.

“No,” Safety Pins answered, bouncing again, “watch me.”

“Like this?” Elmer Spikes asked when she was done, rocking back and forth on his heels.

He said it with such earnestness that I almost didn’t catch what he was doing.

“You just kind of hop, really quick; your feet leave the ground,” Safety Pins tried again, breasts jiggling frantically.

Elmer Spikes’s eyes never left her chest. I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing.

“What?” Safety Pins asked, her chest still heaving.

A huge grin split Elmer Spikes’s face in half.

“Oh, god damn it.” She finally caught on, stopped mid-hop, and shoved Elmer Spikes down onto the tracks. “Real cute, asshole.”

We both laughed. When he picked himself up, I tossed Elmer Spikes a beer from the pack I’d been zealously guarding like a mother bear. He took it, popped it open, and drained the entire thing in three large gulps. I raised my eyebrows at him and tossed him another. Crack, hiss, three gulps, gone.

“Shit.” I elbowed Wash and gestured at Elmer Spikes. “This one does tricks.”

“Such as?” Wash asked.

Wash wore these thick glasses, and something about his bone structure—high cheeks, broad forehead—reminded you of some grim scientist in a sci-fi flick. He had this detached, formal way of speaking that made you think his ideas were worth listening to. Which usually got you in trouble: Wash was, without a doubt, the dumbest motherfucker I have ever met. I once saw him get caught in a subway turnstile. For ten solid minutes.

“Last one,” I said, tossing another beer to Elmer Spikes. He downed it in a second.

“Interesting,” Wash said, after a moment’s consideration; “you must be a hit with the ladies.”

The remark sounded like it might have been witty at first, but when you thought about it, it was completely moronic gibberish. That was Wash.

In response, Elmer Spikes emitted a belch so loud it echoed down the tunnel and rebounded, coming back to us as a guttural chorus. It was strangely beautiful.

“This place is cool,” he said, peering up and down the tracks. “What is it?”

“South Ferry Station.” Jezza instantly spoke up, eager to claim some sort of credit for the find by answering first. “Bobbies closed the inner-loop platform earlier this year. Blokes come round sometimes during the day, but she’s abandoned come night.”

“Bobbies are cops,” I told Jezza matter-of-factly. “The cops don’t close subway stations. For somebody that talks like a chimney sweep, you sure don’t know fuck-all about the English.”

“Piss off,” Jezza said, flipping me a peace sign.

I take it the gesture meant something different in England. You could give him all the shit you wanted, but as long as Jezza got the excuse to say “piss off ” and flip you that “V”—which, I admit, he did perfectly, just like Johnny Rotten—he still felt like a rock star.

“Wash found it,” Randall clarified, and you could see Jezza’s lip curl at the stolen credit.

“Don’t worry,” Wash said authoritatively, “there won’t be any trains.”

“Well, yeah,” Elmer Spikes said, eyeballing Wash with confusion, “I figured.”

“The trains all filter through the outer loop now,” Wash continued, oblivious to Elmer Spikes’s sarcasm. “I know this, because my father used to drive the one line through here. I would sit with him sometimes.”

“Yeah?” Elmer Spikes laughed. “I know this because the rails are dusty, man.”

Wash, Randall, and I had grabbed prime spots under the only lights, a series of dim yellow bulbs in a narrow tile archway that only comfortably fit three. Jezza had elbowed his way up onto the platform a split second later, seeing it as some kind of hierarchal move. He grandly invited the girl in scuffed flannel up after him, like a spot on the cracked, filthy tile was some kind of honor. She was wiggling around on top of Jezza by way of thanks, which he seemed to be enjoying immensely.

The rest of the parasites were milling about a few feet below, down on top of the tracks. Elmer Spikes was trying, and failing, to balance on one foot. He was a pile of twigs in a torn T-shirt, and I think he was terrified of me. I don’t know why, but every time I asked him for something, he went sprinting off like an eager secretary. Safety Pins was kind of a poser. She was always telling us what was and wasn’t punk, but she was good-looking and never wore a bra, so she got to stay. There were two other girls with bright blue hair. Mostly kept to themselves, but they always had money to throw in for beer. We called them Thing 1 and Thing 2. And then there was a black kid with a Mohawk. His name was Matt.

You don’t need nicknames to remember a black punk. They’re like unicorns.

“Did anybody tell Mike where we were hanging out?” Safety Pins asked Thing 1.

“Nobody’s seen Mike in weeks,” Thing 2 chimed in; “he probably moved back home.”

“Man, everybody’s calling it quits. Denny, Brat, and The Spitter all split, too,” Safety Pins added, then, after a moment’s consideration: “Going home isn’t punk rock.”

“The Spitter?” I asked. “His name is The Spitter?”

“Yeah, he spits,” Thing 1 answered laconically. She was slightly better looking than Thing 2, but she was also kind of a smartass. Two plusses for her.

“He spits a lot,” Thing 2 added.

I should hook her up with Wash. They could have history’s stupidest babies.

“That’s what’s wrong with punks these days,” Jezza piped up: “got no manners.”

We all laughed, but Scuffed Flannel carried it just a bit too long. Made it awkward.

“How do you know they’re all moving home?” Randall asked. He was staring down the tunnel after Elmer Spikes, who was singing “(I Live for) Cars and Girls” to himself as he disappeared into the darkness.

“Where else would they be going?” Matt asked. He’d been eye-fucking my beer all night. I tossed him one. Not every day you get to share a brew with a unicorn.

But that’s four down to charity, Carey. Watch yourself.

“Could be on the nod,” Jezza guessed.

“Could be whoring out on the Loop,” I supplied.

“Could be dead,” Randall finished.

We all fell silent on that one, not because it was in bad taste, but because it had an awful measure of truth to it. Life was cheap in NYC lately. Everybody knew it. You could get blasted just trying to lift a measly six-pack from some Korean corner store. You could shoot dope and wander into traffic. You could say the wrong thing to the wrong bald guy with the wrong color laces on his boots and get yourself kicked to death by skinheads. You could go any number of ways, and it happened too often to bother reporting them all.

Or you could meet the tar men.

I knew Randall and Wash had seen them. I had a feeling Jezza had spotted them once or twice, too. But he wouldn’t admit to it. Still, whenever we talked about the tar men, he protested too much and too quickly—just a bit too eager to call us assholes. I wondered if any of the parasites had seen one. I considered asking them, but I knew they’d think I was crazy if I mentioned it.

“You parasites know about the tar men?” I asked—because fuck what they think about literally anything.

“Yeah, they’re great,” Safety Pins immediately said. “Their new stuff is bullshit, but their first album was really good.”

“God, you are so lucky you have rockin’ tits,” I said, shaking my head.

She looked confused.

“They’re not a band,” Randall clarified.

“Not this bollocks again!” Jezza cried, too loud. He had this crazy smile, like he was hearing the funniest thing in the world. “Every time we get a little pissed, you two knob-ends start telling bleedin’ ghost stories!”

Jezza looked around to the parasites, hoping to share a conspiratorial laugh. Thing 2 obliged him, while Safety Pins went quiet and flushed bright red, pissed at being caught in a lie. But Matt and Thing 1 were staring at the ground like it was their favorite TV show.

“I saw ’em.” Matt finally spoke. “People keep saying I was just drunk, and … well, fuck it: of course I was. But I saw ’em. I saw ’em take a girl down an alley, and when I looked after, they were gone. Thin air.”

“I’ve seen them, too,” Thing 1 said, her voice flat and distant. “Not up close or anything. Just shapes moving out by the waterfront. But you could tell they weren’t human, even from a distance. Too big, and they moved all wrong.”

“That ain’t it, either.” Matt spoke again, eager to be done with it. The words spilled out of him all at once: “There’s normal-looking people too. But they’re all wrong inside, just like Jenny said.”

“The fuck’s Jenny?” I asked.

“Her.” Matt pointed at the blue-haired girl. Thing 1. “Sorry. But it’s like she said about the tar men: They’re all wrong. These people look normal, but you can tell by the way they move and look and talk. They dress like us—kind of—but they’re not doing it right. They’re so hard to notice. It’s like only when you’re not looking for ’em do you notice how weird it is that you’re not looking for ’em.”

“You’re arseholed!” Jezza laughed. “Totally arseholed! You sound like a bloody fortune cookie!”

Randall very calmly reached over and flicked him right in the eyeball. Jezza howled.

“Shut up, Jeremy,” Randall said, and pushed himself up off the tile. “I’m tired now. I’m going home.”

“Yeah, fuck it,” I agreed, downing the last of my beer. “I’m out of liquor, too. No point sitting here slowly going sober, letting you parasites drill into my brain with your fucking banter. Let’s go.”

Jezza looked pissed. I couldn’t blame him. Scuffed Flannel had been giving him an extended lap dance since we got there. But he sure as hell didn’t hesitate to scramble after us when we left him in the archway and started heading for the outer platform.

“Hey, wait,” Safety Pins said, jogging up beside me and Randall like we were the scout leaders on a goddamned field trip. “Elmer Spikes isn’t back yet.”

“Boy’s pissing out at least thirty-six ounces of swill right now,” Randall said, heaving himself up onto the outer platform and rolling to his feet. “I’m not waiting for that.”

“The truly great artists suffer for their art,” I told Safety Pins, grabbing her ass as she hefted herself onto the ledge in front of me.

She kicked me square in the throat.

* * *

We never saw Elmer Spikes again.

I don’t know what that meant. Maybe he was pissed that we ditched him, and didn’t want to hang around anymore. Maybe he overdosed in a Village dope house. Maybe he just suddenly realized that “drunken malcontent” wasn’t a very promising career path and decided to pursue his lifelong dream of being an accountant.

I tell myself those things, and I don’t fucking believe a word of them. They got him. The tar men. Whatever those black monsters are, they got Elmer Spikes. I won’t say I missed the kid, but I had been forcing Matt to learn to shotgun beers ever since he disappeared.

“I gwfooo …,” Matt said, foam shooting out of his nostrils.

The lessons weren’t going well.

“Oh, guh.” Matt coughed, one eye shut. “Guh in muh fuggin’ eye!”

“If you drink it faster, it won’t explode out of your head like that,” I told him helpfully.

He ralphed up a soft pile of foam, like a hungry dog.

“I can’t drink it any faster!” Matt protested, unsticking his hands from our artfully disgusting kitchen floor.

“Try putting more of the liquid in you at a greater speed,” Randall suggested.

“That’s not fuckin’ helpful!” Matt yelled.

“Try swallowing larger amounts,” I added, one finger on my jaw in thoughtful consideration.

“Fuck you guys,” Matt said. He got to his feet, turned the faucet on, and stuck his face in the water.

“All right, all right—you don’t have to shotgun anymore …,” I said.

Matt smiled up at me hopefully.

“… until I get back from the store with more beer,” I finished.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“You could always pay for your own beer,” Thing 1 said, sitting cross-legged on top of our wobbly avocado-green fridge. She took a gentle sip of her own drink, by way of demonstration.

“Do I look like a brother who’s got money?” Matt asked, gesturing to his scuffed high-tops and torn jeans.

“You could just not drink,” Thing 2 offered from the living room.

We all stared at her like she’d opened her mouth and a bunch of snakes had come flying out.

“Life is a series of choices,” Wash explained to her, patiently; “that is not one of them.”

They were getting along pretty well, Wash and Thing 2. I say that because I’ve seen all of the signs—the subtle touches of the hand, the lingering smiles, the furtive glances, and the time I walked in on her jacking him off in the bathroom. I’m very observant.

“All right, beer run,” I said, and elbowed my way out of our crowded kitchen.

Thing 1, Matt, Randall, Safety Pins, Jezza, and Scuffed Flannel were all shoved in there like a bunch of cigarettes in a pack, even though the rest of the house was practically empty. Why does that always happen? Throw the most lavish party in the world—pool tables in the garage, jukeboxes in the living room, fucking fire dancers and talking elephants on the lawn—and go check the kitchen. It’ll be standing room only.

Wash and Thing 2 were sitting across from one another on our broken, saggy couch, playing some kind of game. She laid down a card. Wash processed it for a long moment, then laid down his. He laid down a card, and she stared at it like it was a German cipher. She laid down a card.

“What are you playing?” I asked them, wordlessly yanking my leather jacket out from under Wash’s ass.

“War,” Thing 2 muttered, utterly lost in concentration.

“You really are perfect for each other,” I said, swinging my jacket up and sliding my arms through it. It was like strapping into armor. I could take on anything.

Even a quick beer run to the corner store.

“Oi,” Jezza hollered from the kitchen, “pick up some for me and Liz.”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Any preference? You in the mood for a nice, crisp pilsner? Maybe a saucy lager?”

“I could go for a nice pint of bitter,” Jezza answered seriously; “maybe something with autumnal overtones.”

“Right,” I replied, “so the cheapest crap I can find.”

“Righto,” Jezza confirmed, tossing me a wad of filthy bills.

“You good, Wash?” I asked, and he patted most of a six-pack at his feet, too enraptured with his game to spare so much as a glance.

I looked to Safety Pins but saw she still had half a bottle of Jack left. It was her latest affectation: straight Jack Daniel’s, just like Janis. Even if she did make a face with every swig.

“How about you two?” I asked Thing 1. She generally spoke for both of the Things.

She shifted to check her pockets, and from her position atop the fridge—legs at eye level—I saw that her short shorts were riding up provocatively.

“I’m out, but I’m broke,” she said.

“I got your back,” I consoled her, “if I can get your back later.”

“It comes at too great a cost,” she answered, and rolled her eyes.

“You could come for less,” I said.

She tossed her empty can at me underhand. I headbutted it straight out of the air.

“I’ll get you something anyway,” I said.

This was punk-rock courtship: Paying for somebody’s drunk was like giving them flowers dipped in chocolate. “I’m dry and broke, too,” Matt tried, hope glittering in his eyes.

“Oh, you can drink from my beers,” I said, making for the door, “but you know what you have to do.”