The two men sat on a trash heap looking down at the few lights of the town below them. The night was cold and still, the bright light of the moon cast everything in silver and blue.
The tall one, Eds, was all angles and hollows covered by thin skin stretched taut around the bone beneath, glared up at the bright moon. “You’ll be down soon enough, Worm,” he said. The moon above, sometimes called The Ferryman, other times Karon in the forgotten past but now just called Worm, stared down on him remote and indifferent.
He spoke to his companion, a short barrel of a man who bore a large scar that ran from his dead left eye back under his filthy cap. “I see it all the time. Johns come in, then go out by a boat. They’re moving them across the river, to Venera, Nibs. The Johns pay, they get their ticket, and they’re gone.”
“So what, Eds? You got some money for a ticket, maybe? Going to live the high life in Venera? If you’re going to dream, then go for Hayabusa.” Nibs snorted. “Just leave it be.”
“Don’t be stupid, Nibs, I don’t want to go over there,” he lied, “But in that house, they’ve got a stash. I’ve been watching every day for weeks, and the Johns just keep rolling in. Money goes in, and Johns go out. See?”
The house in question was a small run-down collection of shacks on the edge of the river no different than the hundreds of other shanties, hovels, huts, and tar paper rickets that made up the decaying town of Tartarus.
Eds watched the wheels slowly crank in his companion’s head. “Yeah, I see,” Nibs said, not seeing at all. “Money in, Johns out. They have a stash.”
“They do, and we are going to get us a bit of it.”
“You’ve got a plan?”
“I’ve got a plan. We’re going to wait until Worm goes down, and all the happy denizens of the town are asleep, passed out, or dead from the night’s festivities.”
“The what now?”
“The denizens.”
“And what are they?”
“The people you moron.”
“What didn’t you just call them people? Oh! You’re trying to put on some airs!”
Eds glared at him. “Shut your gob.”
“Go on then, Governor.”
“When Worm goes down,” Eds continued, “It will be dark enough for us to slink right up to the house and slip in nice and quiet-like.”
“Like what?”
“What?”
“You said ‘nice and quiet, like—’ and then you stopped.”
“Yes, we’re going to be nice and quiet-like. That’s it. That’s the whole sentence.”
“Ok, but quite like what?”
Eds sighed and refrained from punching his slow friend in the face. “Nice and quiet, like a fish. Ok?”
“Ah, right. Fish are quiet. Unless they jump out of the water and make a splash.”
“Yeah, right. So no making a splash then, ok?”
“Ok.”
“All up to speed now?”
“Yes.”
“Good, then listen: I’ve seen where the Johns go in. There’s a cellar door around the back alley of the place. They get a John down into the basement and keep him there until after midnight. If Worm is up, then they wait until she goes down.”
“Like us?”
“Yes, Nibs, like us. Then they smuggle him out the side, all wrapped up in a sack to make it look like he’s cargo or trash. They put him into a tiny boat they keep under the peer on the left there and slip off to Venera quick and quiet.”
“What if they do have cargo or trash wrapped up there?”
“Then where are the Johns, Nibs? Are they hanging around inside that place? There would have to be dozens of ‘em in there. I’ve watched them go in, and before that very night is over, out comes the John wrapped up snug as a bug.”
Nibs gave Eds a crafty look.
Eds sighs and said, “In a rug, ok?”
Nibs’ smile grows larger, “What’s in the rug?”
“A bug.”
“In a what now?” he said and snickered.
“As snug as a bug in a rug.”
“That’s alright then,” he said, followed by a few horse-like laughs.
“You’re an idiot, Nibs.”
Nibs was not offended, “I do enjoy the small things.”
“So tonight, Worm goes down, we go in.”
“What about the men who bring the Johns in?”
“They won’t be there tonight. They are never there on Friday.”
“Tonight is Friday?”
“Yes, Nibs, tonight is Friday.”
“Maybe they take the day off, grab a drink over at Pearl’s?”
“Maybe.”
“We should go grab a drink at Pearl’s!”
“Do you have any silver, Nibs?”
“No.”
“Then how would you pay for the drinks, then, eh?”
“Maybe Pearl would run us a tab.”
“Pearl’s not going to run us a tab. Focus, Nibs. After we get a bit of their stash, we can go get a drink at Pearl’s.”
“I’m in. What’s the plan?”
Eds sighs and started at the beginning, “We wait for Worm to go down.”
“Worm goes down,” Nibs repeated.
“We slip down to the cellar door of the place.”
“We slip down—wait, what about Nix? He’ll see us with his red eye, Eds, and then we’re done for.”
Nix, the tiny moon with the large red spot, would shoot up over the horizon just after Worm went down. “Superstation, man!” He looked at Nibs, who just shook his head. “We’ll be down there before Nix is up, then out before he clears the rooftops, ok? Then we’ll leave an offering at his shrine, and old Nix will keep his red eye off us. How does that sound?”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, then. What’s the plan?”
Eds placed a hand over his eyes and pulled in a lungful of the frigid air. “Worm goes down. We slip to the cellar door before Nix comes up. Pop it open and in we go. Good so far?”
“Yes.”
“Right, then. Inside we toss the place to find their stash. It’s so small it can’t be that hard to find. Grab a bit of the stash. Not the whole thing, mind you, or they’ll move it and maybe come after us.”
“Who cares if they move it?”
Eds got a crafty look in his eyes, “If we nip off with just a bit, they might not notice, then we can come back again to get a bit more? How’s that for planning?”
“I like it.”
“Sure, eventually they’ll figure it out, but they’ll blame each other, see? And Eds and Nibs will be gone, drinking and whoring while these two clowns cut each other up.”
“Brilliant! Let’s go!” Nibs said and jumped to his feet.
“Wait,” Eds said, grabbing Nib by his threadbare coat hem. “What is step number one?”
Nibs stopped and thought. He slowly tilted his head back, looking up at Worm, trying to piece together the last few minutes of conversation. Then his head snapped forward, and he said, “We wait!”
“For what?”
“For,” Nib said slowly. “Something to happen.”
“Getting warm.”
“Hmm. For something like—” Nibs continued stretching out the words, “Worm! Yes! For Worm to go down!”
“Right. Is Worm down yet?”
Nibs looked up in the sky to see that Worm was still there shining down on him. “No!”
“Then what do we do?”
“We wait.”
“Right. We wait. So sit down and wait.”
Nibs sat down on the rubble and trash next to Eds, and the two men waited.
ʎ
Eds watched Worm slowly creep down the sky and, for a moment, hover on the horizon. “Go down, you old buzzard. There’s nothing for you to see here,” Eds said. Reluctantly, the moon slid down beneath the horizon as if agreeing with the thin man.
“Nibs,” Eds said, kicking the curled-up form of his partner. “Nibs!”
“Don’t want to go to school, Mum,” Nibs mumbled.
“It’s not time for school, you nitwit.”
“What then?”
“It’s time to get paid.”
Nibs sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking blearily at Eds.
“Worm is down,” Eds said.
“Worm is down?”
“Yes. And what does that mean?”
“It’s time to go?”
“It’s time to go.”
“Mum says it’s always time to go.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Right then, let’s get a move on before Nix catches us out and about.”
The two men quickly made their way out from among the trash piles and down the small hill entering the edge of town near the river. They walked down the empty street, looking left and right until they reached the alley behind the building.
“Right here, man,” he said and slipped into the alley followed closely by Nibs.
Eds stopped by the cellar door and waited a few minutes to ensure no one had seen them. The street remained quiet and empty. “Let’s get to it, then,” he said, pulling out a small leather roll full of tools. He crouched down over the cellar door and inspected the lock. “Easy as cake.”
“I’ve never had cake,” Nibs said.
“You can have all the cake you want later,” Eds said as he unrolled his tool kit and pulled out a pair of metal rods. He inserted the rods into the opening of the lock and worked the internals until it popped open. “And we’ll lock it up just as nice as you like on the way out,” he said, pulling the cellar doors open.
“Then, we get a drink.”
“Right you are, then we get a drink,” Eds said and, with one last look around, descended into the darkness of the basement.
Eds looked around but saw no obvious place where the men might keep the money. The basement was nearly bare: no tables, chairs, or shelves. In the corner, near the stairs leading up to the first floor, Eds spotted a mound of clothing. He approached it and crouched down, inspecting the large pile.
“Fancy yourself a new coat, Eds?”
Eds did fancy himself a new coat, but the pile consisted of nothing but shirts. “Nothing here. Let’s move on.”
They moved upstairs and went room to room looking for the stash of money, but the rooms on the first floor, like the basement below were empty: no cupboards, no desks, no cabinets. Each room, like the basement, was completely bare, the floors covered in thick dust. The place looked abandoned. Worse, the building turned out to be far larger than it looked from the outside, and as they searched, Nix slipped over the horizon, filling the rooms with a dim red light.
Noticing the change in light, Nibs dove to the ground. “Nix is up! He can see us!”
“Not yet, he can’t. Get up, man! We’ll find the stash soon and be on our way to Old Man Nix’s shrine, and we’ll be ok!”
Nibs reluctantly got to his feet, careful to stay out of the red light coming in through the windows and followed Eds into the next room.
Eds quickly saw that this room, too, was empty. Turning to leave, he froze as something moved upstairs. He cocked his head and heard the clear sound of chains dragging across the floor.
Nibs looked at Eds, “Ghosts?”
Eds looked back, the confidence having left his face, “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Nibs.”
“A John, maybe?”
“Yes, a John,” Eds replied, not so sure about ghosts.
He pulled a small leather sack full of ball bearings out of his hip pocket. “I’ll give him a good whack on his head if he’s there.”
“I thought you said they were gone!”
“Maybe they slipped one in when I wasn’t looking. It doesn’t matter. Let’s go upstairs.” At the foot of the stairs, they saw footprints in the dust. “Ah. The stash will be up there then,” Eds stated.
“We’re not going to kill him, are we?”
“No, sir. A light tap to the head before he wakes up, and we’ll be on our way.”
At the top of the stairs, Eds saw the tracks go into one room and one room only. “Check the others,” he said. Nibs would find them empty, giving Eds time to take care of whoever was in there.
Nibs nodded and began checking the other rooms. He quickly found the rooms were all empty, their floors covered in a thick layer of dust. He looked around and saw the light of Nix was growing stronger.
Eds quietly moved toward the door while Nibs searched the other rooms. He placed his hand on the knob expecting the door to be locked but was surprised when it turned, and the door silently opened. His eyes rapidly adjusted to the red glow coming in the room, and he stopped as he saw what was in there.
In the room were two sleeping girls. They were curled up against each other, wearing some type of nightgown and chained to a large bed. Eds could see the outline of their bodies through the thin cloth as the red light of Nix grew stronger.
Nibs came in behind Eds a few minutes later, spotted the girls, then looked around the room. Dark marks covered the walls, and piles of debris he could not make out in the low light of Nix sat in the corners.
“What are they doing here, Eds?” Nibs asks, looking at the girls chained to the bed.
“Don’t use my name!”
“Sorry! Ah, what are they doing here, um, Smeds?”
Eds gave Nibs a dirty look as he stood there in the half-light, looking at the girls and thinking. Then it came to him, “They’re pleasure girls!”
“They’re what?”
“Pleasure girls for the Johns. They pay good money to get smuggled over to Venera. They probably want a good meal and a roll in the sheets to ease their journey along.”
“Then why are they chained to the bed?”
“Maybe they tried to break their contract? Got tired of working and made a run for it? Who knows? What is important is that one of them might know where the stash is.”
“I don’t think they’d tell anyone that, would they?”
Suddenly, one of the girls sat up in bed. She moved so quickly and silently that Eds had to blink hard twice to make sure the light was not playing tricks on him. Only the sound of the chains rattling let him know that she had moved.
“One’s awake,” Nibs said.
“I can see that.”
“Are you here to feed us?” she said, looking at the two men, swinging her legs behind her and getting up on her knees.
“Ah, lassie, dinner time is long past. Where’s the stash?” Eds said, stepping closer to the foot of the bed.
“The what?” she said, pushing the covers off her and edging toward the foot of the bed.
“The stash! The money they keep here from the Johns! Don’t play dumb, girl, or we’ll have to hurt you.”
“Money? There’s no money here.” The girl had reached the foot of the bed. Behind her, the second girl awoke and slid up behind the first one. She wrapped her arms around her and looked warily at the two men from over the first’s shoulder.
Eds was still a step away and saw that the first girl had pulled her chains taut.
“They keep you on a short leash, do they?”
The first girl shrugged while the other seemed to sniff at the air.
“Tell us where the money is, and we might let you and your friend free,” Eds lied. It was more likely that he’d send Nibs to get the money, have a roll with these little slips, then bash in their skulls so they couldn’t describe them to the men who put the two here.
“She’s not my friend,” the girl said. “She’s my sister.” The girl drew in a large breath, arching her back as she did, then she blew the air while leaning forward.
“I don’t care if she’s the—” then stopped as he felt her warm breath wash over him.
“Why don’t we have some fun first, then I’ll tell you where the ah, money is. And then you let us go, yes?”
Eds felt a rush of blood to his head as he took in the girl’s scent. The red light of the room seemed to grow brighter and pierce his brain. “Right you are, missy,” Eds said. “Pleasure first, business later.”
“Yes, now come closer.”
Eds stepped closer and began to strip off his coat, followed by his shirt.
Nibs watched the girl and Eds talking and saw the red light of Nix getting brighter as the small moon rose over the rooftops of the buildings across the river. Deep in his mind, he knew that something terrible was about to happen to the girls. He would have to leave a small pile of coins for Nix for what they were about to do.
As the light poured into the room, it pushed away the shadows that had been there before. The dark marks on the walls and the piles of debris became clear. Blood covered the walls in large splashes, and bones were stacked in
“Quiet Nibs, I’m busy,” Eds said as he reached the end of the bed and dropped his shirt and coat to the floor.
Nibs looked at the first girl’s face and could have sworn he saw her eyes glowing red. That was just the moonlight, right? He took a step back and stepped on something that rolled under his foot. He looked down and saw, too clearly now, a badly chewed femur roll out from under his foot. Looking around, he could now see the pieces of gnawed and broken bones strewn around the room. Animal bones? No, not animal bones, human ones. He saw the mounds were bits of ribs, sections of backbones, and pieces of skulls.
“Eds—” he tried again, but the girl interrupted him.
“Quiet Nibs, Eds is busy,” she whispered, then jammed her now claw-like fingers deep into Eds’ stomach. In a blink, she had pulled out a handful of his guts and shoved the flesh into her mouth.
Eds grunted but made no move to pull away from her. He simply stared down slack-jawed at the girl as she jerked another hunk of meat from his abdominal cavity and stuffed it into her face.
The second girl scrambled to the end of the bed and was able to get a few handfuls of meat before Eds, blood pouring out of his gut and flowing down the front of him, sighed and began to fall backward. “Oh, no, Eds! We’re still having fun,” the first girl said and grabbed Eds pulling him forward into the bed. There the two rapidly cleared out his guts, working their way up into his chest cavity, cleaning out his lungs and heart and sliding them down their throats.
Nibs watched in horror as the girls hollowed out his friend’s carcass then tossed aside. “I should be going now,” he whispered and tried to take a step backward toward the door. But Nibs found that his feet would not obey his mind, and he stood there frozen to the floor.
The first girl looked at Eds and said, “The meat was a bit sour. Probably from all the alcohol. And what about you, Nibs?” she said, turning her gore covered head to him, “How might you taste?”
“Fatty. Too salty,” was all he could say. He spotted Nix rising into the window behind the girl’s bed. “I’m sorry.”
The girl glanced over her shoulder at the tiny moon, “Don’t be sorry, Nibs, Nix understands,” she said, smiling. “Now, let’s have some fun.”
Nix rose higher in the night sky then set many hours later, but Nibs did not live to see that.
Epilogue
Soon after Nix set, the Cold Sun rose and gave its meager light to the town. Two men entered the building, each pulling on a respirator and gloves before heading upstairs and into the room where the girls slept.
“Good lord, where did they come from?” the tall one asked, seeing the neatly cleaned out bodies of Eds and Nibs.
The first girl, still covered in blood and viscera, sat up in the bed and stretched while her sister buried herself deeper under the covers. Her mouth opened farther and farther with a yawn until it was many times the size of a normal human’s mouth. Her jaw cracked loudly, then her mouth shut, snapping back to its original shape but not before the tall man and his companion took in a long view of the rows and rows of sharped teeth. The two men looked at each other, then at her.
“They came in last night trying to rob the place,” she said.
“They tried to rob—” started the short man.
“They thought there was a stash around here somewhere,” she continued.
“Of money? Good lord,” the short one said. “Why would they think that?”
“Never mind,” said the tall one. “We’ll wrap the bodies up and get rid of them like the others.”
Later the two men would return with canvas and wrap the two bodies and wait until Worm had gone down, then row the corpses out to the bay and dump them into the sea with the dozens of others they had disposed of so far.
The two men turned to leave when the first girl spoke, “How much longer?”
The tall man turned and replied, “Soon. We need three thousand more credits, and then we can smuggle the two of you to Charon. I think rolling a few more of the patrons of Pearl’s should do it.”
“We need to finish this soon,” the short man said. “People are getting nervous about the disappearances. They’re starting to talk.”
“A week, no more, and then we’ll all be able to leave,” the tall one said.
“To Charon? Where there are others like us?”
“Yes, to Charon,” the tall man said, quickly glancing at his short companion. “Where there are others like you.”
The girl watched the two men leave and rattled the chains that held her and her sister to the bed. A small frown crossed her face as she thought that maybe only the two girls would make that trip.