The Chtorran was lying flat in the center of the room. Engorged and uninterested. His eyes opened and closed lazily. Sput ... phwut.
The dog edged out of the cubicle-he hadn't seen the Chtorran yet. Sniffing intensely, he took a step forward
-and then every hair on his back stood up. With a yow¢ of surprise, the dog leaped backward into the nearest wall. Something about the Chtorran lying there in a pool of dark red blood smelled very bad to this poor creature. He cowered along the wall, slunk toward the space behind a bale of hay-but it smelled even worse there; he froze indecisively, then began backing away uncertainly.
The Chtorran half-turned to watch him move. Twitched. One arm scratched lazily.
The dog nearly left his skin behind. He scrambled toward the only escape he knew, the tiny lit cubicle. But Smitty had closed it. The dog sniffed at it and scratched. And scratched. Frantically, with both front legs working like pedals, he clawed at the unyielding door. He whined, he whimpered, he pleaded with terrible urgency for impossible escape.
"Get him out of there!" It wasn't me who said it-I wish it had been-it was the redhead.
"How?" said Vinnie.
"I don't know-but do something. Please!" No one answered her.
The dog was wild. He turned and bared his teeth at the Chtorran, growling, warning it to keep back; then almost immediately he was working at the door again, trying to get one foot under it, trying to lift it up again
The Chtorran moved. Almost casually. The front half of it curled up into the air, then came down again, making an arch; the back half barely moved forward. It looked like a toppled red question mark, the mouth flush against the floor where the dog had been.
The Chtorran stayed in that position, its face directly against the straw-matted concrete. Blood seeped outward across the dirty stained surface.
There hadn't even been time for a yelp. "That's it?" asked Vinnie.
"Yep. That's it till tomorrow," replied the loudspeaker. "Don't forget to tell your friends about us. A new show every night." Smitty's voice had a strange quality to it. But then, so did Vinnie's. And Jillanna's.
The Chtorran stretched out again. It looked like it was asleep. No, not yet. It rolled slightly to one side and directed a stream of dark viscous fluid against a stained wall, where it flowed into a trough of running water.
"That's all that's left of last night's heifer," snickered Vinnie. I didn't like him.
Jillanna led me downstairs and introduced me to Smitty. He looked like an ice-cream man. Clean-scrubbed. The kind who was a compulsive masturbator in private. Very fair skin. Wisps of sandy hair. Thick glasses. An eager expression, but haunted. I did not shake hands with him.
"Jillanna, did you tell him?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Jim?" She turned to me and went all coquettish, twisting two fingers into the material of my shirt. She twinkled up at me-a grotesque imitation of a woman, this creature who was sexually aroused by the death of three dogs to a giant day-glow caterpillar. She lowered her voice. "Uh, Jim. . . will you give Smitty fifty caseys?"
"Huh?"
"It's for ... you know." She cocked her head toward the other side of the wall where something pink was trilling softly to itself. I was so startled that I was already reaching for my wallet. "Fifty caseys?"
Smitty seemed apologetic. "It's for ... well, protection. I mean, you know, we're not supposed to let unauthorized personnel in here-and especially not when we're feeding it. I'm doing you a favor letting you be here."
Jillanna solved it by plucking my wallet out of my hand and peeling a crisp blue note from it. "Here, Smitty-buy yourself a new rubber doll."
"You should talk," he said, but not very strongly. He pocketed the bill.
I took my wallet back from Jillanna and we left. There was a dark pressure at the back of my skull. Jillanna squeezed my hand and the pressure grew darker and heavier. I felt like a man walking toward the gallows.
I stopped her before we reached the floater. I didn't want to say it, but I didn't want to continue with this horror one moment more.
I tried to be polite. "Uh, well-thanks for showing me," I said. "I uh, think I'll call it a night."
It didn't work.
"What about us?" she asked. She demanded. She started to reach for me.
I held her back. I said, "I guess I'm ... too tired."
She toyed with the hairs on my arm. "I have some dream dust. . . ." she said. Her fingers tiptoed toward my elbow.
"Uh-I don't think so. That just makes me sleepy. Listen, I can walk back to my barracks from here-"
"Jimmy? Please stay with me-?" For just a moment, she looked like a lost puppy, and I hesitated. "Please . . .? I need someone."
It was the word need that got me. It felt like a knife in my gut. "I-I can't, Jillanna. Really. I can't. It's not you. It's me. I'm sorry."
She looked at me curiously, one beautiful eyebrow curling upward like a question mark.
"It's, uh-that Chtorran," I said. "I wouldn't be able to concentrate."
"You mean you didn't find him sexy?"
"Sexy-? My God, it was horrible! That poor dog was frantic!"
"It was just an old mutt, Jim-the Chtorrans are something magnificent. They really are. You have to look at them with new eyes. I used to think it was awful too, but then I stopped anthropomorphizing-stopped identifying with the dogs and started looking at the Chtorrans objectively. The strength, the independence -I wish humans had that kind of power. I want to do it like that. Please, Jim, stay with me tonight. Do it to me!" She was plucking at my jacket, at my shirt, at my neck.
"Thanks-" I said, remembering something my father used to say. Something about knowing what you're getting into. I disengaged myself from her hands. "-But, no thanks." I wanted to say something else, but a vestigial sense of tact prevented me from telling Jillanna what I really thought of her. Perhaps the Chtorran had no choice in being what it was. She did. I began to pull away
"You are some kind of queer, aren't you?"
To hell with tact. "Are you the alternative?" And then I turned and walked away from her.
She didn't say a thing until I was halfway across the lot. Then she hollered, "Faggot!" I turned around to look, but she was already roaring off in the floater.
Shit.
By the time I found my way back to my barracks, I was chilled. But I wasn't trembling anymore, and I wasn't angry anymore. I was only ... sick. And tired. I wanted to be young again, so I could cry into my father's lap. I was feeling very, very much alone.
My bed was like an empty grave and I lay in it shivering, trying to feel compassionate, trying to understand-trying to be mature. But I couldn't be mature-not when I was surrounded by idiots and assholes, blind and selfish and wallowing in their own sick games and fetishes and power ploys. What I really wanted to do was hit and kick and burn and smash and destroy. I wanted to pound and pound and pound. I wanted to grab these people and shake them up and down so hard their eyes would rattle in their heads.
I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel that someone, somewhere-anywhere-knew what he was doing. But right now, I didn't think that anyone in the world knew what he was doing, not even me.
Were they all that blind or sick-or stupid?
Why couldn't they see the truth in front of them? S¢ut-Phwut.
Why couldn't they see it?
Show Low, Arizona, was no hoax!
NINETEEN
TED STAGGERED in at six in the morning, slamming into the room, switching on the lights and banging and clattering his way from wall to wall to bathroom.
"Hooboy!" he shouted. "I am going to be limp for a week-and walk funny for two." The rest of it was lost under the sound of running water.
An axe would be too messy, I decided. It would have to be a gun.