Flaming Zeppelins Read online

  “Vagina.”

  “I believe I would have said the lips of my Venus Mound, but yes. And, I did.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “But the barrel was short, the load was heavy, took a powder flash, burned a spot into my thigh and it’s been there ever since.”

  “Did you hit the target?”

  “I hate to report it was a miss…but the second time I tried it, I hit it. And I didn’t burn myself.”

  “Can you still do it?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t tried it since. But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “There are other things I can do.”

  Hickok rolled on top of her, said, “I know that.”

  “Yeah, well, there are some things I know you don’t know about. Yet.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Years of marriage teaches possibilities.”

  “Show me.”

  She did. And she was right.

  That afternoon, out on the beach, Bull walked with Annie and Hickok. The seal followed from a distance, thinking itself hid. Ducking behind rises of sand from time to time, clumps of bush.

  Hickok said to Bull, “We were thinking about violating Momo’s orders.”

  “Bull good at no follow orders,” Bull said. “Momo crazy white eyes. Like to cut him. Think it fun to scalp little man. Like his hat.”

  “Jack, you mean?” Annie asked. “Ugh.”

  “It would look good on you, Bull,” Annie said. “The hat. Not the scalp.”

  “Where Cody?”

  “With Momo.” Hickok said.

  “Him need help?”

  “His own choice,” Annie said. “Maybe he thinks he can find out something that will help us if he buddies up to Momo. And I think he’d like a new body to go with that head.”

  “Can’t blame him for that,” Hickok said. “But I’ve known him a long time. He always comes around when the chips are down.”

  “Let’s walk,” Annie said.

  “What about our tagalong?” Hickok said, jerking his head toward Ned.

  “I think Ned likes us. Especially Cody. He reads the dime novels. All of us are in them. He idolizes us.”

  In an outbuilding stuffed with beakers, test tubes, wires, lights and colored liquids, Momo worked a booger free from his nose with a dirty finger, wiped it on his pants, said, “I doubt your friends understand what I’m trying to accomplish here, but you, Mr. Cody, being perhaps the most worldly of the bunch…I believe you must.”

  As Momo talked, Buffalo Bill’s head was placed dead center of a long wooden table by Jack. The liquid in Cody’s jar had changed colors, gone pale. Cody felt stranger than usual. The turning of the crank by Jack did little to stir the cobwebs in his brain. Cody was beginning to feel — and he had to laugh when he thought it — disconnected; as if his soul were being stretched like taffy.

  He supposed there were a variety of reasons for this. The fouled liquid in his jar. The aging and watering of the mechanical devices attached to his neck; the wires that were traced to his brain; the unoiled mechanism of the crank.

  At the table’s end, directly in front of him, was a square glass receptacle placed on a six-inch-thick metal platform. The glass contained a howler monkey’s head. The head was alive, juiced by a power pack situated on top of the container. From the power pack, cables ran into the side of the glass, plugged directly into the monkey’s brain. There was no liquid in the container. The monkey looked alert. Its neck swiveled on a rotator.

  “He can turn and look in different directions merely by stretching muscles in his neck and cheeks,” Momo said. “It took a bit of effort to teach him, but a man could learn it rather quickly. An afternoon or two, would be my guess.”

  “And if you smile too hard,” Cody said, his voice coming weakly through the speech tube, “do you spin about like a top?”

  “It takes a special kind of effort. Not hard, but more effort than you would have smiling, or frowning. Or eating.”

  “Of course, the monkey doesn’t eat,” Cody said.

  “Oh, he does,” Momo said.

  “But how? It would run into his neck, fill up…he can’t.”

  “He can, and does. Jack!”

  Jack scuttled about in the back, clanking this, clanking that, finally showed up with a flexible tube, fastened it to the sides of the metal platform; the opposite end of the tube was dropped into a metal container, a large can to be exact.

  The front of the glass case was snapped free. Jack produced a wild plum, held it up to the monkey’s mouth. The teeth snapped as Jack jerked the plum back. The monkey worked its mouth, frantic for the fruit.

  “That is quite enough of that business, Jackie-Boy,” Momo said. “Tease him when I’m not demonstrating. He has such fun with that silly monkey head.”

  Jack laughed, placed the plum so the monkey could eat it.

  It gobbled hungrily as Jack moved his fingers out of the way of the monkey’s teeth.

  “This way,” Momo said, “though the monkey has no stomach, it can taste the plum. The refuse runs through a gap in its neck, into the box on which the contraption rests. From there it’s sucked out by the tubes and into the metal stomach, as I like to call it. Is that not some clever shit?”

  The plum gone, Jack turned a key on the side of the box. It began to pump, pulling the plum refuse from the box and into the metal stomach. Cody could hear it plopping into the bottom with a thud.

  “For the monkey, it doesn’t matter,” Momo said. “He doesn’t need food. I give the head an injection daily. This injection provides all the nutrients the brain, the skin, the eyes need. The cables are there for extra help, but I’ve improved my work so much, he really doesn’t need them. An electrical charge is no longer necessary…do you miss taste, Mr. Cody?”

  “I do.”

  “I thought you might. Put the monkey away, Jack. In fact, get rid of it. I’ve had it long enough. Perhaps we’ll have a new use for our apparatus. A more important one. Huh, Mr. Cody?”

  Jack produced a screwdriver, unfastened the head from the platform, pulled it free of wires and tubes with a plopping sound. Holding the creature’s head by its fur, Jack shoved the back door open, tossed the head up slightly, gave it a sharp kick, causing it to disappear into the distance.

  “Plenty monkeys where that one came from,” Momo said.

  They walked along the beach, and as they walked the jungle to the left of them grew thicker and darker and the sounds from it intensified. The ocean crashed over the algae-covered rocks to their right, foamed around them, crashed against the beach.

  They were soon past the point Momo permitted, and they kept walking.

  The natural sandy beach changed, became more barren, narrow and rock-laden. The jungle turned ever darker and thrived closer and closer to the sea. The sounds of birds and animals intensified.

  Once, Hickok stopped suddenly, looked at what he thought was a face poking out of the foliage, but when he blinked, it was gone.

  “Did you see that?” Hickok asked.

  “What is it?” Annie asked.

  “It looked like a wild hog, with large tusks, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Its face was nearly six feet off the ground. It had to be standing upright. But that can’t be.”

  Bull grunted. “Was hog. Hog man. Saw it.”

  Hickok and Annie looked at Bull. Hickok said, “You saw it too?”

  “Bull see.”

  “Maybe Momo did have a positive reason to keep us away from the jungle and the other side of the beach,” Annie said. “Maybe he has other creations. Not so successful ones. He said something to that effect. I didn’t realize he meant they were…out here.”

  “Could be,” Hickok said, “but I’d still like to see the other side. I don’t cotton to being stuck on this island forever. Not if I can find a boat. Or someone who can get us off.”

  “Perhaps we could take the Naughty Lass,” Annie said.

&nbs
p; “I wouldn’t know how to control it,” Hickok said. “We’d sink.”

  “Bemo might help us.”

  “Not with that thing in his head. He might want to, but there wouldn’t be any way.”

  “Talk less,” Bull said. “Walk more.”

  They continued along the beach, keeping a wary eye directed toward the jungle. In time they came to a wad of seaweed and driftwood on the beach. As they neared it, they saw something was entangled in it. It was a large man wearing the shreds of a Japanese kimono.

  It was the Frankenstein monster, minus an arm. Like Cetshwayo, the sharks had torn it off. Unlike Cetshwayo, the monster had survived. The block of wood had been wrenched from its foot, and now there was only a nub of bone visible.

  “My God,” Annie said. “Is he…alive?”

  “Fact is,” Hickok said, “he was dead before he was what he is now. Whatever that is.”

  “Please see,” Annie said.

  Hickok went to check. He raked back some seaweed, touched the creature’s neck. “No pulse,” he said. “But I don’t know that means anything.”

  It didn’t. The monster slowly raised its remaining arm, opened its hand and clasped it over Hickok’s.

  “For lack of more accurate words,” Hickok said, “it’s alive.”

  Bull stayed with the monster while Annie and Hickok returned to the compound. Momo was on the veranda sitting in a wicker chair, drinking a tall mint julep served by Catherine, the woman who had been a cat.

  When Hickok told Momo what they had found, Momo’s countenance clouded.

  “You went beyond the point I asked of you,” Momo said.

  “It was an accident,” Hickok lied. “We just got carried away. It was so beautiful. The weather was so nice. And then we saw the monster. I hope you’ll forgive our trespassing.”

  “Very well,” Momo said. But he didn’t sound very forgiving.

  Momo sent a rescue party in a motorized vehicle. Behind the hooded motor was an enclosed, two-seat, black cab. Inside the cab rode Tin and Jack. Tin operated the craft with a stick he wobbled left and right; a pedal he pushed with his foot. At his left was a crank he used for a brake. The cab pulled a flatbed cargo carrier made of wood panels. Annie and Hickok rode on that. The vehicle moved an exciting five miles an hour on flat-rimmed metal wheels. The motor made a sound like something dying and whining in pain.

  Eventually they came to the spot where Bull sat on a hunk of driftwood, and nearby the monster lay tangled in seaweed.

  When the vehicle was stopped, Jack bounded over to the monster, sniffing the air. “He stinks. He stinks good.”

  When Tin saw the monster lying there, he startled so much his body made a noise like teapots slamming together. “He is so big.”

  “Yeah,” Hickok said. “He’s a big one.”

  “And he is made from the parts of other men?” Tin asked.

  “That’s the story,” Hickok said. “And I believe it. In a way, he’s not living at all. He moves. He thinks. But he’s not really living.”

  “Neither am I,” said Tin.

  Hickok rapidly changed the subject. “Let’s load him up.”

  They laid the monster on the flatbed, turned the vehicle around, started back. Bull joined Hickok and Annie on the bed with the monster.

  They hadn’t gone far when the creatures appeared.

  They came out of the woods and stood in front of the vehicle, which Tin slowed to a stop just in time to keep from running over them. They didn’t seem to realize that the vehicle could crush them. There were at least twenty of them, and shortly thereafter, twenty more. Their numbers kept increasing as they slipped from the woods to surround and crowd the vehicle.

  They stood like men, wore rags of clothes, but were more animal in appearance than human. Theirs were the faces of hogs, dogs, goats, bears, cows, a lion, a wolf and even one reptilian face. Some of them seemed to be two or three animals blended.

  Yet, their bodies were different from their animal sources. There was a greater intelligence about them, a deeper curiosity. They ran their hands over the vehicle, sniffed at it. Their hands sometimes had five fingers and a thumb, sometimes not.

  Several of them climbed up on the wooden bed, sniffed at the prone body of the monster.

  “We thought you were bringing us another man,” said the one who looked like a wolf. His yellow eyes were intense, and his lips dripped foam. “We have not had a new man among us in some time.”

  Tin and Jack had gotten out of the truck. Jack was carrying a coiled whip in his hands. When the creatures saw it, they cowered instinctively.

  “There is no man here,” Jack said. “Not like you, anyway.”

  “Yes, this is another man,” Tin said. “He has been hurt. We are taking him to the doctor.”

  “To the House of Discomfort?” asked the wolf.

  “No, Sayer of the Law,” said Tin. “He is to be treated for wounds. He has done nothing wrong.”

  “And who are these men?” asked Sayer of the Law. “Are they the creations of the Lord Father?”

  “Yes,” Tin said quickly. “We are all the creations of the Lord Father Momo.”

  The wolf creature, Sayer of the Law, moved closer to Tin, said, “If this is so, and if this man,” he gestured toward the unconscious monster, “is not of the Father, then who is he of? And if he is of other than the Father, then is the Father not the father of all?”

  “He is,” Tin said. “But there are some things too complicated to explain. He is the father of this man, as he is your father. That is all you need to know.”

  “Then if he is of the Father,” said the Sayer of the Law, “and he is being returned to the Father, then he has violated the law, and he should be punished in the House of Discomfort. Is that not the law?”

  “Of course,” said Tin. “But first the Father will make him well, then he will punish him.”

  The creatures were silent. They gathered in a semicircle, moved close to Tin and Jack.

  “Say the law!” Jack bellowed, and cracked his whip. The creatures jumped back, snarling. Jack cracked it again. “Sayer of the Law,” he said. “Recite the law.”

  With head bent, the Sayer began to recite:

  “Not to go on all fours; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to suck up drink; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to eat meat or fish or anything French; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to hump each others’ legs, but to have better aim; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to smell each others’ butts; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to lick our private parts; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to chase, bite, beat, or molest other men; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to dig in the Father’s flower beds at night; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to leave our piles to be stepped in; that is the law. Are we not Men?

  “Not to claw the bark of trees or the faces of others; that is the law. Are we not Men?”

  The Sayer ceased quoting, said, “There might have been another verse in there, but if so I’ve forgotten it.”

  “Close enough,” Tin said. “Now let’s talk about who’s who. Come on, now. Do it. You know what I’m after.”

  There was a moment of shuffling. Finally the Sayer led off with the chant and the others followed:

  “His is the House of Big Bad Pain.

  “His is the hand that makes stuff.

  “His is the hand that wounds stuff.

  “His is the hand that heals stuff.

  “His is the Great Swinging Hammer of Delight.”

  “The what?” Annie asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Tin said.

  “Now, go about your business of men,” Tin said. “And leave the business of other men, the Father’s main men, to them. It is not yours to wonder why, it is yours to do as the Father says. And if you do not…the House of Discomfort.”
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  Tension hung in the air thick as brick. Slowly, the animal-men moved away from the vehicle. Hickok thought he heard one of the creatures mumble something about, “I got your house of discomfort,” but he couldn’t be sure.

  Tin climbed inside the cab with Jack, and away they went. From the wooden bed, Hickok looked back at the throng of creatures. They had gathered in a knot on the rocky beach, staring after the vehicle’s departure.

  Suddenly, one of them lifted its head and howled.

  Bull swung around on his knees, pulled down his pants, and gave the creatures a look at his bare ass.

  “Same to you,” cried the Sayer of the Law, but by that time, the vehicle had turned out of sight around a projection of sand dune and jungle.

  “Did you see the way they were looking at me?” Annie said.

  “Yes,” Hickok said. “With no women creatures among them, I can see how they are disgruntled.”

  Momo, with Tin and Jack in his laboratory, stood over the body of the monster. They had strapped it to a long table. Jack and Tin had used tweezers to pick maggots from the wounds, had scoured them out with water, then alcohol. When this was finished, Momo took a scalpel from the little sliding metal table at his side. He held it up, examined it, watched it wink in the light.

  “Is he awake?” asked Momo.

  Jack slapped the monster’s face. The monster moaned slightly. Jack produced a pail of water, poured it over the creature’s face. It shook its head, throwing beads of water like tossed pearls from its hair.

  “Who are you?” it asked.

  “We are some nice people who are going to give you back an arm and a foot,” Momo said. “But boy is it going to hurt.”

  “Must he be awake?” Tin asked.

  Momo looked at Tin, surprised. “Since when does it matter?”

  “They need not always be awake,” Tin said. “You can make them sleep. You can make him sleep. He need not have to feel the pain.”

  “That’s true,” Momo said. “But what fun would there be in that?”

  Momo turned, looked down at the monster and smiled. “I’m going to attach some little cells, some elements of monkey embryo, mix in some special chemicals. It will fasten itself to your arm and foot with a vengeance, dear monster. It will take twenty-four hours, and you will have a new arm and foot. To attach this little packet of goodness to you, I will need to cut you, and sew into you this magical gift. And it will hurt… Dear monster. Dear…thing… Welcome to the House of Discomfort.”