Security
a Keyhole story
VIII

When he returned from the bathroom Clive said it was time he went home. Wanda offered to drive him. He decided to try walking instead.

"You don't have a jacket," Wanda yelled at him.

"It isn't that cold," Clive shrugged.

A still drunk Irving waved "Bye, Clive! Have fun."

"Irving, shut up," Wanda said, pulling him back inside. The door closed.

Felton shrugged and started walking down the now clear driveway. After a second the door opened and someone threw a coat over him. "Huh?"

"Don't lose it," said Wanda. "You scare the shit out of me sometimes."

"Thanks," Clive said. "I'll see you."

It was a woman's coat but it did its job good and its color was neutral. He let a small smile creep onto his bruised face as he walked into the quiet. For no real reason he felt an optimism, something very rare for him anymore. Tomorrow he'd go to work and start his shift. People would ask about the bruises and he'd joke or just lie about it. They'd ask about his health and he'd claim to be all better. His co-workers would return to talking about themselves and the customers wouldn't care. He'd earn money and make minimum payments and rebuild his credit slowly. He'd watch TV and browse vulgar internet sites. He'd entertain creative notions and decorate his apartment. In enough time he might even find a lover again and complicate his life. He'd either get a better job or grow the balls to go for a promotion. Then maybe he'd have a house and a car and a person to share it with.

Clive Felton relaxed and let overplayed 60s songs run in his head. He let himself judge parked cars and street lamps to be as they should. The night air smelled right to him. He'd used up his worry supply. Clive spent his troubles and paid his dues. This was the gentle orange light at the end of the tunnel.

His footsteps echoed in the dark. He was back in the commercial district. Closed signs hung in glass doors. Overturned trash bins decayed in parking lots. He passed by a brand new Old Navy built on the site that used to be the bowling alley. Abandoned cars with trash bags over broken windows rested in various parking spaces. Clive watched a stray cat cross the street. The occasional car went by, some of them going much too fast. At one point fire trucks passed him with lights on and siren blaring.

In the days after he first moved here, around the time he threw up in front of the now closed bowling alley, Clive would come to this [?] nights hoping something would happen. Nothing ever did happen so he found other things to do. He found out later about a shooting that happened out here. It happened in the middle of the night, around when Clive would usually be here. He felt cheated that he'd missed it.

The night sky was clouded over, the city lights reflected off them turning them orangish. Clive looked up and tried to determine where the moon was. He couldn't find it for some reason.

A couple of drunks walked along the sidewalks going in the other direction. Clive stepped onto the adjoining lot to avoid them. He noticed a $10 bill on the ground and crouched to pick it up. He needed every little bit he could get now. As he shoved it in his pocket he noticed footsteps a ways behind him. Rather than looking back he started walking again in a different direction. The steps kept coming.

Clive changed streets again, and heard the steps coming again. If this was a friend they'd have shouted his name by now. But what enemies did he still have? He kept trying to evade his pursuer. He glanced back once but whoever it was hid himself among planters or other obstructions. He kept walking.

It struck him that this might never end. Someone would always come to stop him or to take what he had. His return to normalcy was false. That first nightmare ended any chance of things staying the same. For all the absurd and impossibility of his misadventures, Clive Felton was sane and his enemies were real. The footsteps getting faster behind him, following him into a lonely downtown, were relentless. He was a target. Someone would always come either to kill him or to take it. The story was the same in both places only here in his own life Clive was powerless, ineffectual. He could maybe hide or outrun this other person but couldn't really fight him. People like Doyle couldn't always appear in time to save him. The police would want the whole truth and his friends would risk becoming collateral damage.

The noise grew louder and Clive knew the distance closed between them. Only one genuine option remained and he knew it was purely insane. This whole business sucked.

He lead the man into a lot between the mall loading docks and the ones from the former Montgomery Ward. Here they'd be hidden from the street and most passers by. There really wouldn't be much to see in any case. Clive Felton stopped and heard the man stop too. They couldn't have been more than ten paces apart.

Clive opened his bag and took out the jar.

"That's you, isn't it, Dr. Peters?"

"It isn't doctor anymore." Peters said. "All thanks to you."

Clive turned around to see the former doctor dressed in black and wearing a cap. "Fuck you, Peters."

"That's all you've got to say to me? If I hadn't done it someone else would have. I'm not the only one trying to weed you people out. This is happening all over."

"I figured you'd say something like that. Come here to kill me?"

Peters pulled out a knife. The thing was fairly impressive. It was shiny chrome and had holes and grooves apart from a long serrated edge. "You ruined my life."

"You were asking for it," Clive opened the jar lid.

"You don't get it. My wife left me, my lawyer wants to settle, my kids won't talk to me. And on top of that you fucking people are ruining the whole fucking world."

"I'm not ruining shit. I work a dull job and lead a dull life. I'm not a threat to anybody. Before I met you nothing ever happened; not even on TV."

"You killed Archer Rand, you fucking asshole!"

"Now you're just splitting hairs."

"I am so sincerely gonna kill you."

Clive pulled the tumor out of the jar and held it in his hand. "Do you know what I'm going to do now, Bryce?"

"Don't, Clive. I'm telling you, do not fucking do that." Peters was scared, more scared than he'd been over the wedding photos.

"What the hell choice do I have?"

"You just have to keep fucking things up, don't you?"

"You and Rand were gonna lobotomize me."

"Big loss."

"Fuck you," Clive opened his eyes wide. He had the tumor in his left palm. He brought it to his face fast, slammed it. It popped into his eye socket. It made a wet squish and the eyelid clenched around it. That hurt a lot. Clive groaned at being half blind. For an instant over half his vision he saw colors that weren't present in the lot where he stood. He knew his eye was leaking all over him. For a second he could feel a swaying motion.

The tumor fell back out.

Somehow he caught it in time. Peters made a move to come at him with the knife. Clive threw the jar at him. The mad doctor swatted it away and it smashed on the pavement.

"You're not getting off so easy, Felton." Peters screamed.

"You little asshole," Clive growled. "You are not gonna fuck this up for me."

Someone a ways off shouted too "Hey, shut the fuck up over there."

Peters ran at Clive. Clive popped the tumor back into his eye. It pulsed and more mess ran down his face. Bryce Peters tried to stab him but got punched in the gut before he could do it. Clive kicked him again in the balls. He turned all his pain back on the doctor. Peters screamed trying to get away, to pick up the knife he dropped. He must have blown a good hundred dollars on it at The Sharper Image. Clive kicked him again when he wasn't looking.

This wasn't just Clive anymore. With the piece of meat in place he was whole again. He aimed to murder this nemesis not just defend himself. The doctor was no super-villain, he didn't even have much fight in him, but that didn't matter. Nothing much mattered.

"Wait!" Peters yelled. "Don't do it. Don't hurt me."

"Too late." Clive said, not quite himself.

"I'll go away. I'll leave you along. I'll pay the settlement. I won't try to kill you or anything."

"So what?"

"But why? It isn't fair. I just wanted to... Dammit, you gotta let me go."

"That didn't sound like an apology."

"What?"

Clive grabbed Peters and rubbed his face in the gore running down him. The doctor gagged. When he fell back to the ground he threw up. Felton went to kick him again but the doctor grabbed at his foot and he went down too. The mad Peters tried to knee his antagonizer in the chest and got punched in the shin for his trouble.

"You weakling. You useless weakling," Clive growled.

"What's wrong with you!?" Peters screamed, crawling away backward. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"You are!" Clive stood up again.

"No. Leave me alone. I'm sorry, okay? Now go away."

"Too late."

Clive picked the doctor up by the front of his shirt. He glared into the pathetic man's face with his good eye, while the doctor just stared at the broken eye with the lump of flesh returning to life in it. Both of mad Felton's hands went around his enemy's throat. At long last he strangled the life out of him. Bryce Peters died from it right there, his eyes bugged out, a look of permanent fear on his dead face.

The body dropped to the ground and Clive stepped back. Then it went down just the way Ronnie said it would. The restored tumor did its trick.

One moment a young man stood in the middle of a nightly truck lot. Then came a blue flash like a flare of a small explosion. Then Clive Felton was gone.


He experienced a sensation like falling. Everything was dark. He half knew, like one knows in a dream, that he was being gathered into his other self for the last time. Faint objects rushed past him. Sometimes it looked like steams of cloth floating past him in the dark bottomless pit. Colored light faded in and out. Towers in various states of decay blew by, everything flying up away from him. Free floating heads and people riding meteors came along too, sometimes shouting. His left eye ached as one does when it sees the sun after being in the dark. He could not judge time but it felt like a lot of it passed. This worried him because he had to pee. He could see no end to it though.

Muntus opened his eyes. He lay on his back in a dark room that seemed to move. A blue taint faded from his partly blurred vision. He aches as if he'd been lying there a long time. Some kind of rhythmic hum sounded. Someone looked down on him but he couldn't make out the features yet.

Two things shocked him right now: that he could remember everything he'd ever forgotten in his short life as Clive Felton and knew it better than anything in this otherworld and that he was as weak as a newborn kitten. He could just barely move his fingers. He reflected on the names of people who worked at his store before he did and remembered every syllable of gossip about why they really quit or were fired. He could not remember where Muntus was from.

He opened his mouth, which proved too dry to speak. The blurry person standing over him put a bottle to his lips and he drank. Whatever was in the bottle burned a little. The ache faded a tad but it certainly helped calm the disquiet of changing lives.

"You're awake," the person standing over Muntus said. He couldn't place the voice just yet. He was confused.

"It... it was a one way trip." he managed to say, his voice rough from sleeping, at least he thought he'd been sleeping.

"What did you say?"

"Behind the keyhole... was a one way trip."

"You're as crazy as ever, Muntus."

"Strum?"

"Who else?" Strum was still a blur, but clearly a reddish horned blur. It was him alright.

"Hey, where the hell are we? Where are the others?"

"You've been unconscious for days. You collapsed while we were trying to raid the Cogu stronghold."

Muntus tried to sit up and failed. "Did we win? Are they gone?"

"It was a disaster. They were ready for us. They took out the Oradus and the city guard and the city fathers. The Cogu won, the whole damn thing. We were all captured. I mean we are captured. We're in their ship heading for their island. We've been at sea for days. I just know we're gonna become mushroom food."

"Where are the others? They're alive, right?"

"Yeah, they're elsewhere in the brig here. These are some others too. The Cogu took our weapons though."

Muntus tried again to get up. "Maybe we could sink the ship somehow."

"And freeze to death in the sea?"

"We could make a raft or something."

"Wait until you can stand up to start planning." Strum helped prop him up. He could see the red face a little better now. It was the same but tired.

"Thanks... I guess I need to get my strength back."

"Well, there is food, dry stuff, but it's food." Strum went out of sight, back into the blur. Muntus heard shuffling rounds. He lifted his armored hand and managed to touch his chin. The finger felt rough on it, slightly rubbery. He'd have to get used to himself all over again. Strum being there made it better. The red thief was the Riggs to his Mertaugh. Swinging objects on the ceiling squeaked, the motion of the boat defining everything. he reasoned it must be a large ship like the pirate ship, otherwise the rocking would be worse. Why did the tides still move with the moon gone? And were lunatics obsolete or was everyone crazy now?

He felt along his cruel kroite face and found that his left eye was a healed over callous of skin. It still bulged like a sleeper's lidded eye, but it wasn't one. The changed happened in both places. He thought it might account for the blur. But the blur still faded and his vision seemed normal. He could perceive depth.

Strum returned and put a bowl in Muntus's hand. "Eat."

Muntus picked up a dry piece of what felt like oversized Cap'n Crunch and chewed on it. It crunched and begrudgingly emitted a flavor. "It takes like dog food." It did.

"I'll take your word for it." Strum sat down next to him. Muntus would see him clear now.

"How many are in here with us?" Muntus asked, still eating or trying to.

"Maybe fifty, I haven't really counted."

"What are our friends doing to pass the time?"

Strum bit his lip "That's another thing..."

"Another?"

"Pon gas gone a little nuts himself. He keeps talking about 'sins of the flesh' or whatever. I'm not trusting him for anything right now."

"That could be bad. His other incarnation might be the reason."

The small alcove they lay in, a space between crates with sacks piled as a bed, ended in a crude curtain. It slid back and paper-white long haired Nash stepped in. Strum stood up: "Muntus is awake."

Nash nodded "Good to see it. But Dardrick is raving again."

"Goddamn it," Strum walked over. "It's a wonder we don't all go nuts in here. Last night they killed and ate one of the other prisoners."

"For fuck's sake help me up." Muntus groaned.

"You can't do much good, rest." said Nash.

"Resting is all I've been doing."

Strum came back over and helped pull the gray thief to his feet. His weak knees didn't help much. Nash sighed and came over to help as well. The three went out into a kind of labyrinth of boxes, wood crates greased in filth. Lanterns hung here and there on short chains with charms hanging from them. The other prisoners lay around in various states of depression. The motion of the boat made the boxes creak over the sound of a steady engine. Pipes obstructed their progress here and there. At one point a four horned man wearing chains and a filthy blue skin made to block their progress but Nash moved him with a blow to the chin.

"This reminds me of a song," said Nash.

"Me too," said Muntus. "But I doubt it's the same one."

"You should hear Pon Dardrick lately; he's been gushing song in a language I've never heard before. It's almost like the old empire language, only weirder."

"I'll bet I've heard it before," Muntus grumbled.

They came into a clearing up against the ship's crusty iron structure. Under rotting pipes the other prisoners gathered, sat or stood, muttering or shouting. In the center of all this stood pasty white Pon Dardrick, his hair looked less fine now and his glass-like horns tainted with blood. A crazed look graced his face as he waved bloody hands, shouting in Russian and the language Muntus heard as English. A corpse lay at his feet.

"I have nine lives, at least," Dardrick said in a very uncharacteristic way. "I gave none of them earily. This man at my feet thought to collect one of them. You can see what it got him."

The crowd mumbled among itself. Muntus frowned and wished he had a sword, among other things.

"God needs repentance," Pon continued. "and before we can repent we must sin. Anyone can tell you're all sinners, just by looking at you. That's why you're here in this nautical damnation."

"We're here because of that ass cult, you fuck," a man near the center stood and shouted at Dardrick. "Say something that makes sense or shut up."

Dardrick stepped closer to the man without looking at him. "I too have sinned. And I repent. And when I go to confession, I don't bore god with small, petty jealous sins,... I offer sins worth forgiving." He grabbed the man's head in a quick motion and headbutted him before wrenching his neck around, breaking it.

People quieted down and gave mad Dardrick more room. He posed a danger to all of them, and more than most since he was now genuinely psycho. he didn't act one bit like the man Muntus met in the [?] sanctuary. the other, Griorgi must somehow have become the dominant one. But Muntus feared that he understood this because he was Clive Felton more than himself right now. But Felton, to everyone's surpsie was sane in the end, but Dardrick's other was not.

Muntus shouted "Dardrick! Knock that shit off right now."

Dardrick glared at him "Lucifer. Judas. You think you can order me."

"Stop acting like a dead Russian. Start acting like yourself. These assholes have got enough problems without you killing people or ranting about a best-seller."

"Don't rile him up!" a hooded yellow man pleaded. "He'll kill us all."

"We got him outnumbered," Nash shrugged.

"I only need one alternate," Dardrick said. "I've got God on my side."

"What's that?" someone shouted.

"I don't have to kill you all," man Pon continued. "Just one more."

"This is no good," said Strum.

It only gets worse too," said Muntus.

Pon Dardrick stood on a mount of crates and pointed down into his audience, screaming: "I only want to kill Muntus Navum."