New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird Part 39

But Riff and the Wolf Man were still working. Just.

The film company looked at the Beach Buggy Korps, warily hostile. Leech realized this was the latest of a campaign of skirmishes.

"What's this all about, Charlie?" demanded the director. "We've told you to keep away from the set. Sam even G.o.dd.a.m.n paid you."

Al pulled the insister, Sam, into a grip and pointed his head at Charlie.

Charlie ignored the fuss, quite enjoying it.

A kid who'd been holding up a big hoop with white fabric stretched across it felt an ache in his arms and let the reflector sag. A European-looking man operating a big old Mickey Mouse-eared camera swiveled his lens across the scene, s.n.a.t.c.hing footage.

Riff took a fat hand-rolled cigarette from his top pocket, and flipped a Zippo. He sucked in smoke, held it for a wine-bibber's moment of relish, and exhaled, then nodded his satisfaction to himself.

"Tana leaves, Junior?" said Riff, offering the joint to his wrestling partner.

The Wolf Man didn't need dope to be out of it.

Here he was, Junior: Lennie Talbot, Kharis the Caveman, Count Alucard-the Son of the Phantom. His baggy eyes were still looking for the rabbits, as he wondered what had happened to the 1940s. Where were Boris and Bela and Bud and Lou? While Joni Mitch.e.l.l sang about getting back to the garden, Junior fumbled about sets like this, desperate for readmission to the Inner Sanctum.

"Who the Holy Hades is this clown?" Al thumbed at Leech.

Leech looked across the set at Junior. Bloated belly barely cinched by the single b.u.t.ton of a stained blue shirt, gray ruff of whiskers, chili stains on his jeans, yak-hair clumps stuck to his cheeks and forehead, he was up well past the Late, Late Show.

The Wolf Man looked at Leech in terror.

Sometimes, dumb animals have very good instincts.

"This is Mr. Fish," Charlie told Al. "He's from England."

"Like the Beatles," said one of the girls.

Charlie thought about that. "Yeah," he said, "like the Beatles. Being for the benefit of Mr. Fish.

Leech got out of the buggy.

Everyone was looking at him. The kerfuffle quieted, except for the turning of the camera.

Al noticed and made a cut-throat gesture. The cameraman stopped turning.

"h.e.l.l of a waste," spat the director.

In front of the ranch house were three more dune buggies, out of commission. A sunburned boy, naked but for cut-off denims and a sombrero, worked on the vehicles. A couple more girls sat around, occasionally pa.s.sing the boy the wrong spanner from a box of tools.

"When will you have Units Three, Four, and One combat-ready, Tex?"

Tex shrugged at Charlie.

"Be lucky to Frankenstein together one working bug from these heaps of s.h.i.t, Chuck."

"Not good enough, my man. The storm's coming. We have to be ready."

"Then schlep down to Santa Monica and steal . . . requisition . . . some more G.o.dd.a.m.n rolling stock. Rip off an owner's manual, while you're at it. These configurations are a joke."

"I'll take it under advis.e.m.e.nt," said Charlie.

Tex gave his commander a salute.

Everyone looked at Leech, then at Charlie for the nod that meant the newcomer should be treated with respect. Chain of command was more rigid here than at Khe Sanh.

All the buggies were painted. At one time, they had been given elaborate psychedelic patterns; then, a policy decision decreed they be redone in sandy desert camouflage. But the first job had been done properly, while the second was botched-vibrant flowers, b.u.t.terflies, and peace signs shone through the thin diarrhea-khaki topcoat.

The ranch house was the basic derelict adobe and wood hacienda. One carelessly flicked roach and the place was an inferno. Round here, they must take potshots at safety inspectors.

On the porch was propped a giant fibergla.s.s golliwog, a fat grinning racial caricature holding up a cone surmounted by a whipped swirl and a red ball cherry. Chocko the Ice Cream Clown had originally been fixed to one of the "requisitioned" buggies. Someone had written "PIG" in lipstick on Chocko's forehead. Someone else had holed his eyes and cheek with .22 rifle bullets. A hand axe stuck out of his shoulder like a flung tomahawk.

"That's the Enemy, man," said Charlie. "Got to Know Your Enemy."

Leech looked at the fallen idol.

"You don't like clowns?"

Charlie nodded. Leech thought of his ally, Ronald.

"Chocko's coming, man," said Charlie. "We have to be in a state of eternal preparedness. Their world, the dress-up-and-play world, is over. No more movies, no more movie stars. It's just us, the Family. And Chocko. We're major players in the coming deluge. Helter Skelter, like in the song. It's been revealed to me. But you know all that."

Funnily enough, Leech did.

He had seen the seas again, the seas that would come from the sundered earth. The seventh flood. The last wave.

Charlie would welcome the waters.

He was undecided on the whole water thing. If pushed, he preferred the fire. And he sensed more interesting apocalypses in the offing, stirring in the scatter of McDonald's boxes and chewed-out bubblegum pop. Still, he saw himself as a public servant; it was down to others to make the choices. Whatever was wanted, he would do his best to deliver.

"Old Lady Marsh don't make motion pictures any more. No need. Picture Show's closed. Just some folk don't know it yet."

"Chuck offered to be in their movie," explained Tex. "Said he'd do one of those nude love scenes, man. No dice."

"That's not the way it is," said Charlie, suddenly defensive, furtive. "My thing is the music. I'm going to communicate through my alb.u.m. Pa.s.s on my revelation. Kids groove on records more than movies."

Tex shrugged. Charlie needed him, so he had a certain license.

Within limits.

Charlie looked back, away from the house. The film company was turning over again. Riff was pretending to chain-whip Junior.

"Something's got to change," said Charlie.

"Helter skelter," said Leech.

Charlie's eyes shone.

"Yeah," he said, "you dig."

Inside the house, sections were roped off with crudely lettered PELIGROSO signs. Daylight seeped through ill-fitting boards over gla.s.sless windows. Everything was slightly damp and salty, as if there'd been rain days ago. The adobe seemed sodden, pulpy. Green moss grew on the floor. A plastic garden hose snaked through the house, pulsing, leading up the main staircase.

"The Old Lady likes to keep the waters flowing."

Charlie led Leech upstairs.

On the landing, a squat idol sat on an occasional table-a Buddha with cephalopod mouth-parts.

"Know that fellow, Mr. Fish?"

"Dagon, G.o.d of the Philistines."

"Score one for the Kwiz Kid. Dagon. That's one of the names. Old Lady Marsh had this church, way back in the '40s. Esoteric Order of Dagon. Ever hear of it?"

Leech had.

"She wants me to take it up again, open storefront chapels on all the piers. Not my scene, man. No churches, not this time. I've got my own priorities. She thinks infiltration, but I know these are the times for catastrophe. But she's still a fighter. Janice Marsh. Remember her in Nefert.i.ti?"

They came to a door, kept ajar by the hose.

Away from his Family, Charlie was different. The man never relaxed, but he dropped the Rasputin act, stuttered out thoughts as soon as they sprung to him, kept up a running commentary. He was less a Warrior of the Apocalypse than a Holocaust Hustler, working all the angles, sucking up to whoever might help him. Charlie needed followers, but was desperate also for sponsorship, a break.

Charlie opened the door.

"Miss Marsh," he said, deferential.

Large, round eyes gleamed inside the dark room.

Janice Marsh sat in a tin bathtub, tarpaulin tied around her wattled throat like a bib, a bulbous turban around her skull. From under the tarp came quiet splashing and slopping. The hose fed into the bath and an overspill pipe, patched together with hammered-out tin cans, led away to a hole in the wall, dribbling outside.

Only her flattish nose and lipless mouth showed, overshadowed by the fine-lashed eyes. In old age, she had smoothed rather than wrinkled. Her skin was a mottled, greenish color.

"This cat's from England," said Charlie.

Leech noticed that Charlie hung back in the doorway, not entering the room. This woman made him nervous.

"We've been in the desert, Miss Marsh," said Charlie. "Sweeping Quadrant Twelve. Scoped out a promising cave, but it led nowhere. Sadie got her a.s.s stuck in a hole, but we hauled her out. That chick's like our mineshaft canary."

Janice Marsh nodded, chin-pouch inflating like a frog's.

"There's more desert," said Charlie. "We'll read the signs soon. It will be found. We can't be kept from it."

Leech walked into the dark and sat, unbidden, on a stool by the bathtub.

Janice Marsh looked at him. Sounds frothed through her mouth, rattling in slits that might have been gills.

Leech returned her greeting.

"You speak that jazz?" exclaimed Charlie. "Far out."

Leech and Janice Marsh talked. She was interesting, if given to rambles as her mind drifted out to sea. It was all about water. Here in the desert, close to the thirstiest city in America, the value of water was known. She told him what the Family were looking for, directed him to unroll some scrolls that were kept on a low-table under a fizzing desk-lamp. The charts were the original mappings of California, made by Fray Junipero Serra before there were enough human landmarks to get a European bearing.

Charlie shouldered close to Leech, and pulled a Magic Marker out of his top pocket.

The vellum was divided into numbered squares, thick modern lines blacked over the faded, precious sketch-marks. Several squares were shaded with diagonal lines. Charlie added diagonals to the square marked "12."

Leech winced.

"What's up, man?"

"Nothing," he told Charlie.

He knew what things were worth; that, if anything, was his special talent. But he knew such values were out of step with the times. He did not want to be thought a breadhead. Not until the 1980s, when he had an itchy feeling that it'd be mandatory. If there was to be a 1980s.

"This is the surface chart, you dig," said Charlie, rapping knuckles on the map. "We're about here, where I've marked the Ranch. There are other maps, showing what's underneath."

Charlie rolled the map, to disclose another. The top map had holes cut out, marking points of convergence. The lower chart was marked with interlinked balloon-shapes, some filled in with blue pigment that had become pale with age.

"Dig the holes, man. This shows the ways down below."

A third layer of map was almost all blue. Drawn in were fishy, squiddy shapes. And symbols Leech understood.

"And here's the prize. The Sea of California. Freshwater, deep under the desert. Primordial."

Janice Marsh burbled excitement.

"Home," she said, a recognizable English word.

"It's under us," said Charlie. "That's why we're out here. Looking. Before Chocko rises, the Family will have found the way down, got the old pumps working. Turn on the quake. With the flood, we'll win. It's the key to ending all this. It has properties. Some places-the cities, maybe, Chicago, Watts-it'll be fire that comes down. Here, it's the old, old way. It'll be water that comes up."

"You're building an Ark?"

"Uh uh, Arks are movie stuff. We're learning to swim. Going to be a part of the flood. You too, I think. We're going to drown Chocko. We're going to drown Hollywood. Call down the rains. Break the rock. When it's all over, there'll only be us. And maybe the Beach Boys. I'm tight with Dennis Wilson, man. He wants to produce my alb.u.m. That's going to happen in the last days. My alb.u.m will be a monster, like the Double White. Music will open everything up, knock everything down. Like at Jericho."

Leech saw that Charlie couldn't keep his thinking straight. He wanted an end to civilization and a never-ending battle of Armageddon, but still thought he could fit in a career as a pop star.

Maybe.

This was Janice's game. She was the mother of this family.

"He came out of the desert," Charlie told the old woman. "You can see the signs on him. He's a dowser."

The big eyes turned to Leech.

"I've found things before," he admitted.