Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 (18 page)

“Over here,” a voice called from the corner.

The Cleavers were huddled around a red bucket, greasy chicken clutched in their fists. Ward dipped his drumstick in the mashed potatoes and left it there to circle the Styrofoam like a chicken shark.
⁹⁹
He stood and motioned for us to take the empty table next to them.

“Please,” he said. “Join us.”

“Wipe your face, Billy,” Mrs. Cleaver said with a smile. The boy dabbed at his chin with the paper napkin from his lap. As usual, his sister Clare was sitting so close as to be nearly on his lap. I shivered.

We slid into the plastic booth next to them and Honey started to eat.

I hadn’t thought of the family since they tore out of the campground, but these people were just freaky enough to have an entire room in their tour bus devoted to weapons of medieval torture. “Sweetheart,” I imagined Ward would call. “Please bring me the Mallet of Unbearable Torment and the hamburger buns, wouldya?” They were certainly as likely suspects as the Mormons, or whatever they were.

I eyed them suspiciously, then looked to Honey to see if she were thinking the same thing. She just shrugged.

“Not eating, Ms. Feral?” Billy asked.

“Not here.”

“Not a fan of the fried foods, I suspect,” Mrs. Cleaver said. “That’s how she keeps that gorgeous figure.”

Ward winked. I had to get away from this subject before I said something I’d regret. “You guys were sure hot to get out of Coeur d’Alene. In a hurry or something?”

“No. No. Just hate to mess up the old travel plan.” Ward reached into his jacket and pulled out a flip book on a short spiral of wire, handmade probably, and I didn’t have to guess by who. “Make these up with each trip. Clips of map routes for each day, campgrounds, restaurants, all that.”

“This place is on your list?” I asked.

“Absolutely.” He flipped through the little book and pointed out the KFC under the words “evening snack”,
but before Billings and Wal-Mart, apparently the next destination.

I scanned the floor. Chicken nuggets shared real estate with dust-covered fries and wads of greasy napkins. It was hard to believe that someone had planned to come to such a shithole, though I’d certainly need to prepare to return to the restaurant. Hip waders would have to be in play.

“I see.”

“He’s going to turn those little books into a million dollar idea one day.” Mrs. Cleaver beamed. The rest of the quartet nodded. The same grin spread on each pasty face. These people were either too nice or too clueless to have killed that little albino girl. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that AAA had beaten Ward to the punch and gave individualized flip maps out to their customers. For free.

“How did all that nastiness turn out?” He leaned toward me, a look of concern spread on his face like margarine—and not butter, nothing that real.

“We got Becky’s hear—” Honey started, but I kicked her under the table. “Ow.”

“Poor girl,” I said. “The cops think it was a bear. Can you believe that?”

“A bear?” Billy’s mouth dropped open. “But how—”

Ward kicked his son under the table. The boy’s mouth snapped shut. “Imagine that. A bear. Poor thing.”

“Oh my.” Mrs. Cleaver gathered their trash and piled it on their tray. “Well, it’s been nice chatting with you ladies. We really must be going though.”

The family slid out of the booth and headed for the door.

Ward lingered. “You two take care. Maybe we’ll see you up the road.”

“Look forward to it,” I said.

Honey rolled her eyes.

He patted the table and strode off.

Honey pointed at his back with a chicken wing. “Now those people give me the fucking creeps.”

How can you not love her? Surrounded by zombies and vampires, her friend’s heart nearby in a Ziploc bag and potential food poisoning at the KFC from hell were not enough to faze the girl, but the Cleavers creeped her out.

Wendy snapped her cell closed as she rounded the dented corner of the camper—not that they didn’t all have dents, they did—this one was just particularly denty. “The Kraken’s at a place called the Berkeley Pit, not far from here. Madame Gloria was certain, but a little bit sketchy about directions.”

“Her
moderately accurate
spirits must be acting up. What the hell is a Berkeley Pit?” I asked.

Wendy shrugged. Fishhook shook his head. Honey sucked at her Diet Coke.

“I’ll run into that gas station and ask directions.” Gil trotted off across the vacant main street toward the glowing kiosk beyond the pumps. It was only 8:00 at night, but he’d be the only customer. For so little to look at it was a wonder none of us had managed to see the white on brown sign that said “Berkeley Pit” with an arrow pointing to the left.

“Gil!” I yelled as the door shut behind him. “Damn.”

When he returned, we rode with Honey and Mr. Kim back across the freeway and up the hill toward a dimly lit clump of buildings nestled next to a massive black hole. Wendy refused to come until someone did something about her own hole, and since no one had any idea as to how to fix it, she just sat and sulked at the camper table. Fishhook stayed, too, he had some sorting to do, it seemed.

“So this ‘pit’ is supposed to be the world’s largest pit mine, stripped clean of copper or something, and now it’s full of acid. Or at least that’s what I gathered from the slow-ass clerk.” Gil hunched between the bucket seats and tapped Honey on the shoulder. “Are you nervous, kid?”

“Yeah kind of, to see him again after searching so long, you know?” She turned in her seat, resting on her knees with her back to the dash. “Is he?” She pointed at the backseat.

Mr. Kim shook his head, and I thought he might be crying but I couldn’t quite make out the definition of his face as his hands were in the way. I adjusted the rearview mirror. “I think we’re almost there. It looks like a bigger sign and a visitors’ center up ahead.”

I pointed the Volvo into a space next to a trailer with the words Gift Shop scrawled over the door. There was a dim light coming from the boxy building’s window, but no shadows or movement of any kind inside.
Over to the right was some kind of mine entrance framed and faced in wood and topped with a chain-link fence and barbed wire. An arch in the middle led to a darkened area beyond.

“This is it,” I said, pointing to the routered wooden sign above the entry; a single light lit it from above.

Berkeley Pit.

“You take care of sister.” Mr. Kim wrung his ethereal hands in a display of anxiety.

Gil allowed his arm to hover about Kimmy’s shoulders. “She’s gonna be fine, old man.”

When I opened my door, a malodorous wave of rusty metal assaulted my sinuses, burning through my head like lava. I squeezed the bridge of my nose and massaged my brow, but neither seemed to be particularly effective. I glanced at my companions. Neither Honey nor Gil seemed to be having a reaction, at all. Rather, they stood side by side watching an odd figure approach from the direction of the wooden arch.

He was a giant, and not in a steroid puffed bodybuilder kind of way. He stood at least seven feet tall with thin gangly arms and legs, an elongated oval for a head and a face sheathed in darkness. You’d think he was an alien, or a basketball player, except for the tuxedo and tails he wore. And not a single gold chain to destroy the look. It was when he opened his mouth that the exotic illusion was dismembered.

“Hey, youze guys. Welcome. This here’s the single most visited supernatural attraction west of the fuckin’ Mississippi gash. Ain’t nobody don’t wanna see the Mighty Kraken. And if youze got the gift, you’ll be right in there. Youze got the gift, right?”

He slinked up to Gil, knees popping sideways with every step, and glared down into the vampire’s face. Gil lurched backward but was caught by the shoulder
and held close. The shadow lifted from our host’s face. Gil closed his eyes and started counting aloud. “One one thousand, two one thousand.”

“Youze guys got the gift, right?” The guy whispered this time. The air hissed out of him like a punctured lung.

I slipped in front of Honey, who clutched the back of my shirt, and we shuffled closer to see what had spooked my friend to the point of psychobabble anxiety tricks. As I peeked around, the arc of the thing’s smooth blue cheeks and a single pointy ear came into view, followed by an inky black eye and teeth to match. A cigarette dangled between shriveled gray lips. So … not pretty. In fact, reports of Bat Boy’s death were apparently exaggerated—no wonder the
Weekly World News
went out of business. Yet, I didn’t remember him being an Italian demon from New York.

I fished the Ziplocked heart from my bag and shook it over Gil’s shoulder. “Right here, motherfucker. You can back off any time now.”

He retreated, spreading his arms wide. “Then we got no fuckin’ problem. Vinnie!” he wailed over his shoulder.

The trailer door opened and a squat brown-skinned lump, the shape and texture of chocolate pudding, but with similar ears and face to Stretch, waddled down the stairs and toward us.

“Unleash the Kraken!” the alleged Bat Boy yelled.

“Whadda you mean, Eddie?” Vinnie approached with a low stuttering roll, as though propelled by many legs, rather than the requisite two. “There ain’t no goddamned—”

I could hear the tall demon whisper, “Call down to Frank and tell him we’ve got some fuckin’ visitors, and make it quick!”

He snatched the baggie from my hand and waddled off through the arch and out of sight. I swear to God, that thing looked just like a dollop of chocolate pudding. It’s probably a good thing Wendy didn’t come.

“Now if youze’ll just follow me we’ll get on the tram for the guided tour.” Tour with two syllables, naturally. He retrieved a garage door opener from his tuxedo jacket and pointed it at the side of the wooden wall. A small door cranked open with considerable creaks and whines and ejected a long, thin, wheeled vehicle with folded seats and angled footrests, a gangplank on wheels. He flipped up the front seat and punched a button on the floor. A low buzz filled the air as the contraption’s engine purred.

“Well? What are youze fuckin’ waitin’ for? An invitation?”

Honey sat behind the demon and Gil behind me. The seats weren’t uncomfortable despite being a bit rickety. I was pretty sure the place wasn’t nearly the tourist draw Eddie’d suggested, until he hit another button on the garage door opener and the little Berkeley Pit sign above the arch folded inward and was traded mechanically for an astonishingly gaudy hunk of neon (see inset). The garish pinks, blues and purples lit up the hole in the wall, revealing a chalky white tunnel. The effect was not unlike looking down the throat of a strep throat victim. The line of pipes that ran the ceiling even resembled the veiny stretch of fiber that connects the tongue to the base of the mouth.

Eddie pushed another button and a metal lever
popped up from the left side of the tram. He pulled it and we lurched forward slowly.

From his right, a microphone stand pivoted from some hidden pocket and popped up and found its way to his puckered mouth. His Italian accent was abandoned for a whitewashed mid-western pronunciation.

“Leviathan, The Kraken of Butte—just like the sign says—is the oldest living aquatic mystic,” Eddie began, steering us into the tunnel at a snail’s crawl. “Originally hailing from the icy chop of the English Channel, Levi—as we now refer to him—sought warmer waters in the early 1900s. He traveled through the sea’s deepest channels, confronting mystery and danger with the enthusiasm and strength befitting an ancient of his stature. He navigated the caves that honeycomb the earth’s core and fought a multitude of ferocious battles before weaving his way to the surface of this flooded mine. Not without consequence, either. His flesh was battered and torn and he was in desperate need of rest and recuperation.”

We crept into the silent tube, a pipe more than a cave, really, walls painted a hideous funereal pallor. A dim light glowed ahead, flickering occasionally as though obscured by shadows or a large enough presence to block the opening.

“So, Eddie?” Gil clutched my shoulder as he asked, leaning around to get a look at our tour guide.

“Whadda you want? I’m kinda talkin’ up here, you know?”

“The guy at the gas station said this water is full of acid. Said that nothing can survive in there. Said that this one time a flock of geese landed in there and the whole lot of them died. So how—”

“Levi’s different, ain’t he? It’d be like someone asking you why you don’t catch HIV from all the blood
you gobble up all over the place. You’re dead. Levi’s kind of like that. He’s just never been what we’d call alive.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t expect you to understand. No one can comprehend the majesty that is Levi. He’s God-like. He must be revered.”

Gil sighed. “Got it.”