Walk on the Wild Side

Passages



There were the three of them seated at one of the corner tables, somewhat away from the rest of the crowd in the rented banquet room at the Legion Hall. A paper banner painted in red and black school colors welcomed back the Pine Hill High School Class of 1963 to its 25th Class Reunion. A moderately bad local band was playing a medley of hits from the 1960s, and many of the middle-aged alumni were attempting to dance. In an eddy from the amplifiers it was impossible to carry on a conversation.

They were Marcia Meadows (she had taken back her maiden name after the divorce), Fred Pruitt (once known as Freddie Pruitt and called so again tonight), and Grant McDade (now addressed as Dr McDade). The best of friends in high school, each had gone his separate way, and despite yearbook vows to remain the very closest of friends forever, they had been out of touch until this night. Marcia and Grant had been voted Most Intellectual for the senior class. Freddie and one Beth Markeson had been voted Most Likely to Succeed. These three were laughing over their senior photographs in the yearbook. Plastic cups of beer from the party keg were close at hand. Freddie had already drunk more than the other two together.

Marcia sighed and shook her head. They all looked so young back then; pictures of strangers. “So why isn’t Beth here tonight?”

“Off somewhere in California, I hear,” Freddie said. He was the only one of the three who had remained in Pine Hill. He owned the local Porsche-Audi-BMW dealership. “I think she’s supposed to be working in pictures. She always had a good—”

“—body!” Marcia finished for him. The two snorted laughter, and Grant smiled over his beer.

Freddie shook his head and ran his hand over his shiny scalp; other than a fringe of wispy hair, he was as bald as a honeydew melon. A corpulent man—he had once been quite slender—his double chin overhung his loosened tie, and the expensive suit was showing strain. “Wonder how she’s held up. None of us look the same as then.” Quickly: “Except you, Marcia. Don’t you agree, Grant?”

“As beautiful as the day I last saw her.” Grant raised a toast, and Marcia hoped she hadn’t blushed. After twenty-five years Grant McDade remained in her fantasies. She wished he’d take off those dark glasses—vintage B & L Ray-Bans, just like his vintage white T-shirt and James Dean red nylon jacket and the tight jeans. His high school crew cut was now slicked-back blond hair, and there were lines in his face. Otherwise he was still the boy she’d wanted to have take her to the senior prom. Well, there was an indefinable difference. But given the years, and the fact that he was quite famous in his field...

“You haven’t changed much either, I guess, Grant.” Freddie had refilled his beer cup. “I remember that jacket from high school. Guess you heart surgeons know to keep fit.”

He flapped a hand across his pink scalp. “But look at me. Bald as that baby’s butt. Serves me right for always wanting to have long hair as a kid.”

“Weren’t you ever a hippie?” Marcia asked.

“Not me. Nam caught up to me first. But I always wanted to have long hair back when I was a kid—back before the Beatles made it okay to let your hair grow. Remember Hair and that song? Well, too late for me by then.”

Freddie poured more beer down his throat. Marcia hadn’t kept count, but she hoped he wouldn’t throw up. From his appearance, Freddie could probably hold it.

“When I was a kid,” Freddie said, becoming maudlin, “I hated to get my hair cut. I don’t know why. Maybe it was those Sunday school stories about Samson and Delilah that scared me. Grant—you’re a doctor, ask your shrink friends. It was those sharp scissors and buzzing clippers, that chair like the dentist had, and that greasy crap they’d smear in your hair. ‘Got your ears lowered!’ the kids at school would say.”

Freddie belched. “Well, my mother used to tease me about it. Said she’d tie a ribbon in my hair and call me Frederika. I was the youngest—two older sisters—and I was always teased that Mom had hoped I’d be a girl, too, to save on buying new clothes—just pass along hand-me-downs. I don’t know what I really thought. You remember being a kid in the 1950s: how incredibly naive we all of us were.”

“Tell me!” Marcia said. “I was a freshman in college before I ever saw even a picture of a hard-on.”

“My oldest sister,” Freddie went on, “was having a slumber party one night for some of her sorority sisters. Mom and Dad were out to a church dinner; she was to baby-sit. I was maybe ten at the time. Innocent as a kitten.”

Marcia gave him her beer to finish. She wasn’t certain whether Freddie could walk as far as the keg.

Freddie shook his head. “Well, I was just a simple little boy in a house full of girls. Middle of the 1950s. I think one of the sorority girls had smuggled in a bottle of vodka. They were very giggly, I remember.

“So they said they’d initiate me into their sorority. They had those great big lollipops that were the fad then, and I wanted one. But I had to join the sorority.

“So they got out some of my sisters’ clothes, and they stripped me down. Hadn’t been too long before that that my mother or sister would bathe me, so I hadn’t a clue. Well, they dressed me up in a trainer bra with tissue padding, pink panties, a pretty slip, lace petticoats, one of my fourteen-year-old sister’s party dresses, a little garter belt, hose, and heels. I got the whole works. I was big enough that between my two sisters they could fit me into anything.

I thought it was all good fun because they were all laughing—like when I asked why the panties didn’t have a Y-front.

“They made up my face and lips and tied a ribbon in my hair, gave me gloves, a handbag, and little hat. Now I knew why sissy girls took so long to get dressed. When Mom and Dad got home they presented me to them as little Frederika.”

“Did you get a whipping?” Marcia asked.

Freddie finished Marcia’s beer. “No. My folks thought it was funny as hell. My mom loved it. Dad couldn’t stop laughing and got out his camera. This was 1955. They even called the neighbors over for the show. My family never let me live it down.

“Pretty little Frederika! After that I demanded to get a crew cut once a week. So now I’m fat, ugly and bald.”

“Times were different then,” Marcia suggested.

“Hell, there’s nothing wrong with me! I was a Marine in Nam. I got a wife and three sons.” Freddie pointed to where his plump wife was dancing with an old flame. “It didn’t make me queer!”

“It only made you bald,” said Grant. “Overcompensation. Physical response to emotional trauma.”

“You should’ve been a shrink instead of a surgeon.” Freddie lurched off for more beers all around. He had either drunk or spilled half of them by the time he returned. He was too drunk to remember to be embarrassed but would hate his soul-baring in the morning.

Marcia picked up the thread of conversation. “Well, teasing from your siblings won’t cause hair loss.” She flounced her mass of chestnut curls. “If that were true, then I’d be bald, too.”

“Girls don’t have hair loss,” Freddie said, somewhat mopishly. “Thank you, but I’m a mature forty-three.” Marcia regretted the stiffness in her tone immediately. Freddie might be macho, but he was a balding, unhappy drunk who had once been her unrequited dream date right behind Grant. Forget it: Freddie was about as much in touch with feminists as she was with BMW fuel-injection systems.

Marcia Meadows had aged well, despite a terrible marriage, two maniac teenage sons, and a demanding career in fashion design.

She now had her own modest string of boutiques, had recently exhibited to considerable approval at several important shows, and was correctly confident that a few more years would establish her designs on the international scene. She had gained perhaps five pounds since high school and could still wear a miniskirt to flattering effect—as she did tonight with an ensemble of her own creation. She had a marvelous smile, pixie features, and lovely long legs, which she kept crossing, hoping to catch the eye of Grant McDade. This weekend’s return to Pine Hill was for her something of an adventure. She wondered what might lie beneath the ashes of old fantasies.

“I had—still have—” Marcia corrected herself, “two older brothers. They were brats. Always teasing me.” She sipped her fresh beer. “Still do. Should’ve been drowned at birth.”

Her hands fluttered at her hair in reflex. Marcia had an unruly tangle of tight chestnut-brown curls, totally unmanageable. In the late 1960s it had passed as a fashionable Afro. Marcia had long since given up hope of taming it. After all, miniskirts had come back. Maybe Afros?

“So what did they do?” Freddie prodded.

“Well, they knew I was scared of spiders. I mean, like I really am scared of spiders!” Marcia actually shuddered. “I really hate and loathe spiders.”

“So. Rubber spiders in the underwear drawer?” Freddie giggled. It was good he had a wife to drive him home.

Marcia ignored him. “We had lots of woods behind our house. I was something of a tomboy. I loved to go romping through the woods. You know how my hair is—has always been.”

“Lovely to look at, delightful to hold,” said Grant, and behind his dark glasses there might have been a flash of memory.

“But a mess to keep combed,” Marcia finished. “Anyway, you know those really gross spiders that build their webs between trees and bushes in the woods? The ones that look like dried-up snot boogers with little legs, and they’re always strung out there across the middle of a path?”

“I was a Boy Scout,” Freddie remembered.

“Right! So I was always running into those yucky little suckers and getting their webs caught in my hair. Then I’d start screaming and clawing at my face and run back home, and my snotty brothers would laugh like hyenas.

“But here’s the worst part.” Marcia chugged a long swallow of beer. “You know how you never see those goddamn spiders once you’ve hit their webs? It’s like they see you coming, say ‘too big to fit into my parlor,’ and bail out just before you plow into their yucky webs. Like one second they’re there, ugly as a pile of pigeon shit with twenty eyes, and then they vanish into thin air.

“So. My dear big brothers convinced me that the spiders were trapped in my hair. Hiding out in this curly mess and waiting to crawl out for revenge. At night they were sure to creep out and crawl into my ears and eat my brain. Make a web across my nose and smother me. Wriggle beneath my eyelids and suck dry my eyeballs. Slip down my mouth and fill my tummy with spider eggs that would hatch out and eat through my skin. My brothers liked to say that they could see them spinning webs between my curls, just hoping to catch a few flies while they waited for the chance to get me.”

Marcia smiled and shivered. It still wasn’t easy to think about. “So, of course, I violently combed and brushed my hair as soon as I rushed home, shampooed for an hour—once I scrubbed my scalp with Ajax cleanser—just to be safe. So it’s a wonder that I still have my hair.”

“And are you still frightened of spiders?” Grant asked.

“Yes. But I wear a hat when I venture into the woods now. Saves wear and tear on the hair.”

“A poetess,” remarked Freddie. He was approaching the legless stage, and one of his sons fetched him a fresh beer. “So, Grant. So, Dr McDade, excuse me. We have bared our souls and told you of our secret horrors. What now, if anything, has left its emotional scars upon the good doctor? Anything at all?”

Marcia sensed the angry tension beneath Freddie’s growing drunkenness. She looked toward Grant. He had always been master of any event. He could take charge of a class reunion situation. He’d always taken charge.

Grant sighed and rubbed at his forehead. Marcia wished he’d take off those sunglasses so she could get a better feeling of what went on behind those eyes.

“Needles,” said Grant.

“Needles?” Freddie laughed, his momentary belligerence forgotten. “But you’re a surgeon!”

Grant grimaced and gripped his beer cup in his powerful, long-fingered hands. Marcia could visualize those hands—rubber-gloved and bloodstained—deftly repairing a dying heart.

“I was very young,” he said. “We were still living in our old house, and we moved from there before I was five. My memories of that time go back to just as I was learning to walk. The ice cream man still made his rounds in a horse-drawn cart. This was in the late 1940s.

“Like all children, I hated shots. And trips to the doctor, since all doctors did was give children shots. I would put up quite a fuss, despite promises of ice cream afterward. If you’ve ever seen someone try—or tried yourself—to give a screaming child a shot, you know the difficulty.”

Grant drew in his breath, still clutching the beer cup. Marcia hadn’t seen him take a sip of it since it had been refilled.

“I don’t know why I was getting a shot that day. Kids at that age never understand. Since I did make such a fuss, they tried something different. They’d already swabbed my upper arm with alcohol. Mother was holding me in her lap. The pediatrician was in front of us, talking to me in a soothing tone. The nurse crept up behind me with the hypodermic needle. My mother was supposed to hold me tight. The nurse would give the injection and pull out the needle, quick as a wink, all over and done, and then I could shriek as much as I liked.

“This is, of course, a hell of a way to establish physician-patient trust, but doctors in the 1940s were more pragmatic. If Mother had held my arm tightly, it probably would have worked. However, she didn’t have a firm grip. I was a strong child. I jerked my arm away. The needle went all the way through my arm and broke off.

“So I sat in my mother’s lap, screaming, a needle protruding from the side of my arm. These were the old days, when needles and syringes were sterilized and used over and again. The needle that protruded from my arm seemed to me as large as a ten-penny nail. The nurse stood helplessly. Mother screamed. The doctor moved swiftly and grasped the protruding point with forceps, pulling the needle on through.

“After that I was given a tetanus shot.”

Marcia rubbed goose pimples from her arms. “After that you must have been a handful.”

Grant finally sipped at his beer. “I’d hide under beds. Run away. They kept doctor appointments secret after a while. I never knew whether a supposed trip to the grocery store might really be a typhoid shot or a polio shot.”

“But you got over it when you grew up?” Freddie urged.

“When I was sixteen or so,” Grant said, “I cut my foot on a shell at the beach. My folks insisted that I have a tetanus shot. I flew into a panic, bawling, kicking, disgracing myself in front of everyone. But they still made me get the shot. I wonder if my parents ever knew how much I hated them.”

“But surely,” said Marcia, “it was for your own good.”

“How can someone else decide what is your own good?”

Grant decided his beer was awful and set it aside. He drank only rarely, but tonight seemed to be a night for confessions. “So,” he said. “The old ‘identification with the aggressor’ story, I suppose. I became a physician.”

Freddie removed his tie and shoved it into a pocket. He offered them cigarettes, managed to light one for himself.

“So how’d you ever manage to give anybody a shot?”

“Learning to draw blood was very difficult for me. We were supposed to practice on each other one day, but I cut that lab. I went to the beach for a day or two, told them I’d had a family emergency.”

Marcia waved away Freddie’s cigarette smoke. She remembered Grant as the class clown, his blue eyes always bright with ready laughter. She cringed as she remembered.

Grant continued. “Third-year med students were expected to draw blood from the patients. They could have used experienced staff, but this was part of our initiation ritual. Hazing for us, hell for the patients.

“So I go in to draw blood. First time. I tie off this woman’s arm with a rubber hose, pat the old antecubital fossa looking for a vein, jab away with a needle, still searching, feel the pop as I hit the vein, out comes the bright red into the syringe, I pull out the needle—and blood goes everywhere because I hadn’t released the tourniquet. ‘Oops!’ I say as the patient in the next bed watches in horror; she’s next in line.

“Well, after a few dozen tries at this I got better at it-but the tasks got worse. There were the private patients as opposed to those on the wards; often VIPs, with spouses and family scowling down at you as you try to pop the vein first try.

“Then there’s the wonderful arterial stick, for when you need blood gases. You use this great thick needle, and you feel around the inside of the thigh for a femoral pulse, then you jab the thing in like an ice pick. An artery makes a crunch when you strike it, and you just hope you’ve pierced through and not gouged along its thick muscular wall. No need for a tourniquet; the artery is under pressure, and the blood pulses straight into the syringe. You run with it to the lab, and your assistant stays there maybe ten minutes, forcing pressure against the site so the artery doesn’t squirt blood all through the surrounding tissue.”

Freddie looked ready to throw up.

“Worst thing, though, were the kids. We had a lot of leukemia patients on the pediatric ward. They’d lie there in bed, emaciated, bald from chemotherapy, waiting to die. By end stage their veins had had a hundred IVs stuck into them, a thousand blood samples taken. Their arms were so thin—nothing but bones and pale skin—you’d think it would be easy to find a vein. But their veins were all used up, just as their lives were. I’d try and try to find a vein, to get a butterfly in so their IVs could run—for whatever good that did. They’d start crying as soon as they saw a white jacket walk into their room. Toward the end they couldn’t cry, just mewed like dying kittens. Two of them died one night when I was on call, and for the last time in my life I sent a prayer of thanks to God.”

Grant picked up his beer, scowled at it, set it back down. Marcia was watching him with real concern.

“Hey, drink up,” Freddie offered. It was the best thing he could think of to suggest.

Grant took a last swallow. “Well, that was the end of the sixties. I tuned in, turned on, dropped out. Spent a year in Haight-Ashbury doing the hippie trip, trying to get my act together. Did lots of drugs out there, but never any needle work. My friends knew that I was almost a doctor, and some of them would get me to shoot them up when they were too stoned to find a vein. I learned a lot from addicts: How to bring up a vein from a disaster zone. How to use the leading edge of a beveled needle to pierce the skin, then roll it one-eighty when you’ve popped the vein. But I never shoved anything myself. I hate needles. Hell, I wouldn’t even sell blood when I was stone broke.”

“But you went back,” Marcia prompted. She reached out for his hand and held it. She remembered that they were staying in the same hotel...

“Summer of Love turned into Winter of Junkies. Death on the streets. Went back to finish med school. The time away was therapeutic. I applied myself, as they used to say. So now I do heart transplants.”

“A heart surgeon who’s scared of needles!” Freddie chuckled. “So do you close your eyes when the nurses jab ’em in?” He spilled beer down his shirt, then looked confused by the wetness.

“How did you manage to conquer your fear of needles?” Marcia asked, holding his hand in both of hers.

“Oh,” said Grant. He handed Freddie the rest of his beer. “I learned that in medical school after I went back. It only took time for the lesson to sink in. After that, it was easy to slide a scalpel through living flesh, to crack open a chest. It’s the most important part of learning to be a doctor.”

Grant McDade removed his dark glasses and gazed earnestly into Marcia’s eyes.

“You see, you have to learn that no matter what you’re doing to another person, it doesn’t hurt you”

The blue eyes that had once laughed were as dead and dispassionate as a shark’s eyes as it begins its tearing roll.

Marcia let go of Grant’s hand and excused herself.

She never saw him after that night, but she forever mourned his ghost.





In the Middle of a Snow Dream



The costumes were rumored to be genuine Playboy Club surplus, minus the bunny tails and funny ears. Niane Liddell hated them. They were satin or something, heavily boned to pull in the waist and push out the bust, and you needed a friend to help zip you in and out of them whenever you went to the toilet. She had waited topless in bars before, but at least that had been more comfortable than this blue satin torture device. The pawing and patting were about the same either way, but it was cooler topless lugging trays of drinks all about, and at least she could draw full breaths.

This was not the reason why she decided to pour scalding coffee upon her hand.

Niane Liddell actually had just turned twenty-one, although she had claimed to be of that age since she had fled a dying mining town in Campbell County, Tennessee four years before in search of the bright lights of Nashville. Her singing career had not burst upon the country music scene quite as she had expected. After a series of dirty jobs, Niane had saved enough dirty money to afford a bus ticket to Los Angeles. There, she found things dirtier.

Her Nashville agent had promised this and passed her on to a Los Angeles agent who had promised that, but the promises never really came true and neither did Niane’s wishes. She slept with the people she was told to sleep with, and she landed a few bit parts in trash films, mostly done directly for videocassette. Niane had a very good body, a naturally pretty face and smile, although she thought her nose too big, lots of shining straight black hair, which she wore Cleopatra style, and an East Tennessee accent that only Nashville should have loved. She took voice lessons, but her film career proved as hopeless as her music career. She could always find work waiting tables in bars, and this she did. Niane took pride in the fact that she hadn’t had to turn to the streets, as had so many other crushed hopefuls.

This, despite her growing drug habit.

It had started with a little coke and smack at those parties where she wound up screwing important producers who weren’t really producers for important films that never seemed to materialize. And it went on. No stardom. The drugs helped. Niane kept reminding herself that she never took money for screwing on the casting couch. Her only receipts were broken promises and tracks on her arms.

Niane wanted to go home, wherever that was. She saved some money from tips waiting at the topless bars, made a good bit more dancing nude, and, while she refused to admit it to herself, turned a few tricks for customers whom she really did like and who gave her enough money for smack and crack. One night stands was all. She wasn’t a prostitute.

Niane was gang-raped one night at a crack house. She was stoned, didn’t remember how many and didn’t care at the time. She seemed to remember that she owed them some money. Afterward, they gagged her and threw her naked body into a dumpster with her wrists bound and her ankles tied back to a noose around her neck. Then they left her to die in garbage. An example to other bitches.

A bag lady, sleeping inside the dumpster beneath the trash, awoke and found Niane writhing in death throes. She untied her before Niane had completely strangled, and somehow summoned the police.

Niane could tell them nothing. Her only clear memory was of strange dreams as she lay dying in the trash.

Her beating was severe enough to hospitalize her for more than a week. She confessed to her drug addiction as soon as the withdrawal started. They put her on Methadone, Valium and Xanax, and sent her packing once she could walk. Niane was pleased that there would be no scars.

So she hurriedly withdrew her savings—enough for a plane ticket and some to live on—packed whatever she had worth packing, and caught the first flight to Knoxville, Tennessee. The boys at the crack house would be looking for her, this time with bullets to make sure of the job. They wouldn’t bother looking as far as Tennessee for a few hundred bucks, and Niane had a girlfriend from Nashville who now worked in Knoxville. Crash space and maybe a job.

Niane’s friend worked at Kim’s Klub. She was a statuesque black woman named Navonna Wardlow—about three years Niane’s senior and above five inches taller than Niane’s five-foot-six. Navonna had danced at one of the topless bars in Nashville where Niane had worked the tables. They had stayed in touch after both had left Nashville without stardom. Kim’s Klub had opened in Knoxville, and Navonna got a job as waitress/dancer and was in a position to get Niane work there. Good pay, yuppie tips, and crisp bills stuffed into your G-string when you stripped.

Navonna had a bag of bootleg Demerols in her purse, and Niane needed them really badly. But Navonna knew the signs, and Niane was already into her for fifty bucks and her half of the rent money. Niane had been a little overindulgent with her prescriptions. She was running low, trying to stretch them for another few days until she could renew them, and she really needed some Demerols to see her through. And Navonna wouldn’t let her have them. And here they’d been pillow mates for several months now. And she’d even let Navonna wear some of her dresses from Los Angeles. The ones she’d worn to auditions. And the red bustier she’d bought at Frederick’s of Hollywood. And Navonna was really too tall for Niane’s size. It wasn’t fair.

It was almost an accident. Niane’s hands were sweaty as she filled a carafe from the coffee urn, but she deliberately let it spill onto her hand as it tipped. She screamed. She hadn’t known it would hurt this much.

The staff made a fuss. The manager was upset. Navonna sat with her in the employees’ rest room and wondered if she might not need to see a doctor for the scald. Niane said there was no need for that, but she could use some Demerol for the pain. Navonna took her back to their dressing room and gave Niane her packet of Demerols. She would look in on Niane in a few minutes.

Marti, a blonde from Crossville, finished her striptease and came in not long after to exchange her G-string for her surplus Bunny corselet. She asked Niane to help her into it. At first she thought Niane was just having a nap. Niane was barely breathing. The Demerols were gone. Marti screamed for help.

Navonna didn’t wait for the ambulance. She picked Niane up in her arms, rushed out to one of the taxis that cruised Kim’s Klub, and had the driver rush to the nearest hospital emergency room. She performed CPR as best she could as they drove.

The driver had heard many stories of cabbies with women having babies in the back seat on the way to the hospital, but never one of two bimbos in frayed Bunny costumes going at it in a cab. Despite the distraction, he made it to the hospital in time.

Navonna was carrying her in her arms. They were both wearing only their G-strings, but that was OK, as the leaves were stripping from the trees and fluttering down about them. Niane wanted to say something, but Navonna just said, “Hush now, baby,” and pressed her breast into Niane’s mouth as she carried her along. It was a pathway through wooded mountains—the mountains of Niane’s childhood home. She sucked at Navonna’s breast, tasting her warm, rich milk.

The fluttering leaves. They weren’t leaves. Only made to look like leaves. Camouflage. They were more like tiny flying manta rays of some sort.

Beneath their leaf camouflage they had gills, or gill slits, and tiny sharp teeth in rows within wide mouths. Their bellies were white; their eyes coldly rapacious.

They began to land upon her, biting. Niane tried to warn Navonna, but Navonna only pressed Niane’s mouth harder against her breast, walking steadfastly through the attacking flurry of flying creatures. The leaf-mantas were settling all over both of their nude bodies—biting, sucking.

“She’s coming around now,” Dr Greenfeld told a frightened Navonna. They had given her a white lab coat to cover her costume and told her to wait in the lobby of the ER. Two patients had mistaken her for a doctor.

Dr Greenfeld was a stout, fortyish, very efficient, very much overworked woman. She was a little too aggressive for Navonna’s liking.

“Thank God,” murmured Navonna.

“Got her here not a minute too soon. Must have been fifty Demerol we pumped from her stomach. Where did she get them? “I have no idea. I do know she has prescriptions for Methadone, Valium and Xanax.”

“What sort of fool would prescribe that witch’s brew!”

“I can’t say,” Navonna stammered. She hated hospitals. “It was in Los Angeles. She was raped and beaten, left for dead. I think she had been on drugs before that.”

Dr Greenfeld’s tone softened, but remained brisk. “I see.” She glanced at her chart. “And you, Ms Calloway What is your relationship to Ms Liddell?”

“We’re co-workers and share an apartment.”

Dr Greenfeld had seen their costumes and did not comment. “Next of kin?”

“None that I know of. She’s from somewhere in Campbell County. I met her in Nashville when we both had stars in our eyes. Look, I can help cover her bill.”

“That’s a job for accounting. Just now we’ll keep her here under observation until I’m certain that the overdose has cleared her system. After that, I’m signing commitment papers, in as much as she is clearly a danger to herself, if not to others.”

“But she scalded her hand, that was all!”

“We’ll see that she receives treatment for her substance abuse problems. If she responds well to therapy, I don’t expect her to be an in-patient very long. What idiot prescribed her medications! Oh, and we’ll need your signature on this.”

“Hello, Ms Liddell. I’m Dr Ashford. But please feel free to call me Keith, if that will make you feel more at ease.”

“Then please call me Niane. When will I get out of here?”

Niane was uncertain, but she guessed she had been on the locked psychiatric ward for about a month. Suicide precautions had been dropped. She had been weaned from her witch’s brew of medications and was now coasting along on a minor dose of Mellaril. Someone still seemed to think she needed medication of some sort. She didn’t know why.

“I’ve arranged for a sort of halfway house in the mountains,” said Dr Ashford. “It’s a sort of old resort hotel, nothing fancy, built in the 20s, and usually rented out to church groups. It’s quiet there, and I’ve already convinced a number of recovering addicts and other patients to spend the week there, sharing experiences, undergoing counseling, before taking the step back to the real world. I feel that this is an excellent therapy opportunity, and, in view of your excellent progress here, I consider you an excellent candidate. This is completely voluntary, of course. What do you say?”

“Excellent,” said Niane. She’d kill to get out of this prison.

“Excellent,” agreed Dr Ashford.

He was thirty-something, tall and very good looking, with wavy brown hair and neatly trimmed beard. Behind his faux tortoise-rimmed glasses, his eyes were a mild hazel. He wore a loose linen jacket, beige, no tie on a blue button-down collar shirt, and beige cotton Dockers with neat Reeboks. Niane guessed he drove a BMW. She guessed right.

“Can my roommate come along? She’s come to visit nearly every day. I don’t know how I’d have made it without her.”

“Close friends?”

“Very close.”

“Then I don’t see why not. Others are bringing family members. Perhaps she’d like to participate in group, or just take in the view.” Dr Ashford leaned forward in his chair. “I understand you’ve had two near-death experiences.”

“How did you know that?”

“From your charts, of course. After all, I am a consulting psychiatrist with full hospital privileges. It was by my advice that you weren’t given ECT—that shock treatment. Totally uncalled for.”

“Just get me out of here.”

“I’ll see to all the arrangements.”

It was a decaying 1920s resort hotel currently named The Brookstone Haven. Staff were minimal—this was off-season and the place had gone to seed. Sprawling pine logs and cement-chinked construction, bathrooms down the hall. Mountain stream flowing beneath double overhanging verandas. Stream-fed pool that no one would want to jump into even in summer. Just now it was spitting snow.

Niane thought of her mountain home in Campbell County.

Navonna was having a blast. She bounced up and down on their creaky bed. “Hey, we’re in a Boris Karloff movie, baby! Just send Bela Lugosi in for me. Man, it’s so good to see you out of that place and feeling better. We’re going to party here, honey. Then back to work at Kim’s Klub until we find something better. We’ll do it, girl!”

Navonna hugged her. “God, girl, I’ve sure missed you.”

“I’ve missed you,” said Niane.

Navonna usually wore a wig and had a very short Afro, and that night Niane clung to her hair as best she could, driving Navonna’s mouth deep between her thighs. Once she had climaxed, she buried her face between Navonna’s legs, loving her frantically. The antique bed creaked and rattled awfully, and they were probably keeping whoever was next door awake, but neither cared. It had been a long time apart.

It was still spitting snow the next morning when Dr Ashford greeted them at breakfast. Scrambled eggs, country ham, red-eye gravy, grits. If you don’t want grits, why’d you order breakfast, as the saying goes.

There were Niane and Navonna, somewhat red-eyed as well. Dr Ashford and Dr Greenfeld, both looking cheerful. Niane hadn’t realized that Dr Greenfeld was a psychiatrist until several days after her dimly remembered overdose.

The coffee was good. It smelled like Navonna.

There were about a dozen others in the group, some of whom had brought along spouses or friends for support.

Darla King was a burnt-out punker, hostile attitude, who had recently nearly overdosed on smack. Dressed in black, hennaed hair, cute, looked ten years older than she was.

Nathan Morheim was here with his wife. A stroke had left him in a coma for weeks, and his mind had never really recovered. He was a pudgy old man with a happy smile.

Janet Dickson was a chronic schizophrenic, now maintained on Prolixin. When off her medication, she liked to slash her wrists—once nearly fatally. She looked like an aging diner waitress.

Maurice Crossman had come apart in Nam. Parts of his guts were still there. Medics didn’t give him a chance, but they dusted him off anyway, and he lived to come back, and he did just fine until the screaming would start again.

Sissy Dexter was a pert blonde teenager. She wasn’t wearing a silly helmet when her ten-speed hit an angry Doberman and her head hit the curb. She could joke about getting last rites, and she was through the worst of it.

Jeff Vickery was younger than Sissy. He had a problem with crack, in that he smoked a little too much one night, went into cardiac arrest, and by the time paramedics had him ticking, his brain had taken a licking. His mother was with him.

Alice Shepherd had choked on a bite of steak at a restaurant. By the time someone performed the Heimlich maneuver, she had suffered permanent neurological damage. Her walker and her sister accompanied her.

Daniel Chase was a chronic schizophrenic taking two grams of Thorazine a day. Once, when he forgot his medication, he jumped in front of a bus to tell the driver that he was Jesus. The driver couldn’t stop in time to hear the rest.

Tami Malone was a juvenile diabetic. As if acting out her teenage angst, she forgot to take her insulin on occasion in order to get attention. One such occasion had left her near death. Her mother huddled close to her, eating unbuttered toast as an example.

All of this and more Niane confided to Navonna following their first morning group session. Navonna had passed the time reading a Stephen King novel. She had a trailer-load of Demerol hidden in her suitcase, but she wasn’t about to let Niane know.

“Let’s go for a walk in the snow!” Niane invited. “It really reminds me of home. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.”

“Yes. Let’s do it!” Navonna was so pleased to see Niane back to life once again. That thought stirred another thought, and she thought about that thought as she dressed for outside.

It was a typical east Tennessee snow flurry. Ground frozen enough to hold the flakes, not enough snow to cover the ground. All gone the next day. Unless more came down.

Some of the others were walking about. Niane tried to make snowballs to throw at Navonna, but couldn’t scrape up enough of the meager dusting.

They walked giggling along the gravel road, past a series of outbuildings. Garages, storage sheds, individual cabins. All in long disuse. The snow continued to flurry about them.

Niane was determined to make a snowball. She scraped bits of snow from the gravel as they walked.

She stopped suddenly. “Oh! What’s this?”

“Roadkill. Yuck!” Navonna turned away.

“But what is it?” Niane carefully picked it up from the snow.

The carcass was flattened and desiccated, about twelve inches in length. Niane at first thought it was a monkey, but this had tiny horns and bat’s wings. She flipped it in disgust toward the base of a tall pine tree.

“Squashed prop from Wizard of Oz,” said Navonna, peeking. “Leave it lay there. Probably some weird kind of bat from these mountains, and bats can carry rabies. Best you go wash your hands.”

Niane rubbed her hands on her jeans. That didn’t look like any bat she’d ever seen. Endangered species? Escaped from a zoo?

“We need to get back. Dr Ashford has us scheduled for another group session after lunch.”

That night, as they nestled together, Niane suddenly said: “I know what the common denominator is here. With the patients.”

Navonna was almost asleep. They had wrestled about in a delicious sixty-nine for what seemed like hours. “What denominator? Go to sleep, honey.”

Niane sat up in bed and persisted. “We’ve all of us had neardeath experiences.”

“Tell me about it in the morning.” Navonna rolled over and gave her a reassuring hug, urging her back to her pillow.

Niane had a morning session with Dr Ashford. She hadn’t taken any Mellaril since leaving the hospital, so she begged another Demerol from Navonna to steady her nerves. It cleared the furtive movements she kept seeing at the edge of her vision.

Dr Ashford was in his usual positive mood, exuding calm and confidence. “Well, Niane. Please sit down. You seem much more chipper this morning. The mountain air is doing you good, despite this inclement weather.”

“Thank you, Dr Ashford.”

“Please do call me Keith, if it makes you feel more comfortable. I like to establish an informal rapport with my patients.” He was dressed from an L.L. Bean catalogue and very relaxed.

“All right then, Keith.”

After the usual preamble, Keith said that Niane was doing very well in group; Niane said that it was a relief to be off drugs and that she had no more suicidal thoughts.

“Let’s explore this,” Keith suggested. “You were nearly murdered in Los Angeles. What were your final thoughts?”

Niane wanted another Demerol. “I can’t really say. I was really stoned before the... the... before it all started. I remember being pulled from a car trunk, then a rope tightening about my throat. It hurt. Then I was thrown into a dumpster. Garbage covered my face. There was laughter. I blacked out. Then there were the police.” Keith studied some notes, made some more. “According to police reports you may have been unconscious for several minutes before the homeless person managed to untie you. You told the police that you had had strange dreams as you were dying. What sort of dreams?”

Niane was definitely getting another Demerol after this session. Navonna had hidden her stash, but she knew where to look. “I was walking naked through the snow, back in Campbell County where I grew up. There were things crawling all about. At first I thought they were sticks or snakes, but then I saw they were more like—what do you call them?—lamprey eels. Like leeches. They had sucking mouths all lined with teeth. They began biting me all over, and I couldn’t pull them off!

“Then I could breathe again, and the police came.” Niane couldn’t stop shaking.

“Yes. Well, I think that’s enough for now. We have group just after lunch. Why don’t you and your friend have a nice walk through the snow. The exercise is relaxing.”

Niane begged another Demerol from Navonna, then they took a nice walk through the snow. The snow was slowly getting deeper, an inch or more. From the clouds, there might be much more on the way. Niane finally made some snowballs. A fight ensued with much shrieking. Niane felt like a teenager again, although she was twenty-one going on one hundred.

She bent down to scrape up another snowball, then screamed:. “Oh my god! Here’s another one! And it’s alive!”

Navonna rushed to see. “What the f*ck!”

It was flopping across the snow. Short brown fur, something like a tailless monkey with membranous wings. It was smaller than a house cat and had tiny horns. Its feet were like an owl’s talons. Its muzzle was pointed and had many pointed teeth, which it snapped at them as it crawled across the snow.

Niane bent down to pick it up.

Navonna grabbed her arm and drew her back. “Don’t touch it! It’s rabid!”

“But it’s dying in the snow.”

“There’s nothing you can do. Leave it!”

“What is it?”

“I think it’s a fox bat or a fruit bat, whatever they call them. I can’t say. They live in South America.”

“Then what’s it doing here?”

“Migrating. Someone’s pet. I don’t know. There may be more of them wintering in these old buildings.”

“Bats don’t have horns. Or arms.”

Navonna dragged at her. “So now you’re the expert on bats. Just leave it alone. I’m sure it’s rabid.”

“We ought to report this to someone.”

“Then tell one of the doctors. Will you come on!”

Niane complained about her nervousness that night, but refused to take her Mellaril. Navonna gave in and gave her two Demerol. Then she unpacked their favorite dildo, strapped it on, and soon had Niane too exhausted to complain.

There was more than a foot of snow on the ground by morning. They slept through breakfast. Niane had a morning session with Dr Ashford. She complained that her crotch was too sore because Navonna had been too rough, and Navonna gave her two more Demerols, knowing full well the scam.

At least Niane wasn’t pouring coffee on herself. Navonna decided to keep her stash on her person.

Keith was his genial self. Niane was a little stoned.

“Still taking your Mellaril?”

“Yes. But it does make me drowsy.” She had flushed it down the toilet yesterday.

Small talk; then: “Let’s pick up from yesterday. I think we should explore your recent overdose.”

“I scalded my hand. I was already on too much medication. I took a handful of Demerols without thinking what I was doing. It wasn’t a suicide attempt. I was just out of control.”

“Dr Greenfeld told me you almost died. CPR and quick treatment pulled you through after your heart and breathing stopped. You were clinically dead for several minutes. Very lucky to have pulled through.”

“I won’t do it again. What’s this leading to?”

“What did you experience as you were dying?”

“Again?”

“It’s important.”

“Navonna was carrying me. We were only wearing our dancer’s G-strings. Leaves came fluttering down. Only they weren’t leaves. They were like mutated manta rays or something. They settled onto our bare skin, drinking our blood. Surely you have all of this from my hospital records.”

“Best to have it from the patient firsthand.”

“All of the patients here have had near-death experiences.”

“Very observant, Niane. But you are the only one who has died twice. We can help one another to learn.”

“About what?”

“About what’s on the other side.”

“I’m out of here!” Niane stood up.

“Sit down. There’s more than a foot of snow outside, and it’s still coming down. No road crews here. I doubt you’d get very far. Aren’t two death experiences enough?”

Niane sat back down, clenching her fists. “This isn’t a retreat or a clinic! What do you want from us?”

Keith folded his hands, trying to look fatherly. “Dr Greenfeld and I have been doing research on near-death experiences. What you and the others have shared with us may answer life’s final question: Where do we go after death, and what else is out there?”

“Why this rundown dump of a hotel? Why not a real clinic?”

“Pleasant surroundings. Isolation. Past reports of paranormal phenomena. Conducive to patients’ rapport with their buried memories, as you have demonstrated. Dr Greenfeld and I agree that certain points on this earth serve as gateways to other worlds.”

This time Niane jumped up for good. “You’re no psychiatrist! You’re a pair of looney-tunes! Navonna and I are out of here as soon as the snow stops. And I’ll tell the others. We’ll phone down for a fleet of snowmobiles or something.”

“Lines are down,” said Keith patiently “Bad storm.”

“And you’ve got bats in your belfry.” Niane started for the door, then decided to fire the parting shot. “You really do. Only thing is they live in those old sheds, and they have horns and monkey’s arms.”

Keith jumped up and grabbed her arm. “What have you seen!”

“Just what I said. Let go of me!” He was very strong.

“Just tell me!”

“I found a dead one in the road when we first got here. Yesterday I found one dying in the snow. Navonna said it was probably rabid and had migrated from South America. Let go of my arm.”

Keith’s eyes were intense, and he wouldn’t let go. “Just show me where you found it. I’ll make arrangements for all of us to leave once the snow stops. I promise.”

Niane got her coat and pulled a still sleepy Navonna along for protection and confirmation. Keith was waiting impatiently with Dr Greenfeld.

Of course, it was impossible. Niane and Navonna weren’t sure just quite where, the bat had still been crawling about, and the snow was approaching two feet in depth. A record blizzard for this area of the Smokies’ foothills.

Niane kicked along the gravel road. They’d been at it for hours, and she was freezing. She remembered the large pine tree. There it was, the skeletal one, where she’d flung it, buried under the snow. She scraped away snow.

“Here’s one of them.”

Keith carefully removed it from the snow. He and Dr Greenfeld examined it in awe.

Keith murmured, “My god, it’s really happening!”

The snow was falling so thick that Niane almost didn’t see it flying toward them. “Here’s a fresh one! Watch out!”

The bat-thing struck Dr Greenfeld, ripping her heavy quilted parka with its teeth. She screamed and slung it off her arm. It flew back into the snow storm, circling.

“Back inside,” said Keith. “Quick.”

As Niane turned to shuffle back through the snow, she saw a drift move. Something like a lamprey eel peered out. Niane ran as fast as she could, saying nothing to the others.

They passed a clump of reddening snow. Mrs Malone had made a bad decision to have a morning winterland stroll. Keith brushed away enough snow to see the bloated maple-leaf things that feasted upon her.

“The experiment’s out of control!” Dr Greenfeld massaged her bleeding arm. “There’s too much energy! They’re breaking through!”

“Move!” ordered Keith. A stick with teeth shot out of the snow and snapped at his leg, barely missing.

They made it inside and locked the door. For whatever good.

“What’s happening!”Niane demanded.

Someone was screaming upstairs. The screams stopped.

“This site is a gateway,” Keith said, looking all about. “Sort of a flaw in the universe of the natural human world. The Cherokees knew about it. The whites ignored it. Now things are breaking through.”

“You’re no psychiatrist,” Niane said slowly.

“I am, but I’m also what you might call a sorcerer. Sounds foolish, but we do exist.”

“And I’m Elvis in drag. And I’m walking out of here right now. Navonna, come on!”

Keith shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter if you believe me. This was to have been an experiment to gather together a group of near-death survivors. I wanted data. I hoped for a possible spiritual manifestation from your combined experiences linking to the gateway here. Nothing like this, however. Together you created too much power. I was only doing research.”

“And I was the one locked up in the nut house,” Niane said.

Someone else was screaming from the direction of the kitchen. There was the sound of breaking glass. Something hit the front door. Hard.

“You’re doing it,” Keith said.

“What? What am I doing?”

Keith removed his tie. He seldom wore one. He mopped his forehead with it. “My theory is that when you die, you fall into a universe of absolute evil. Its denizens demons, if you will—formed by your imagination, descend upon you. No heaven, only hell. When you die and are returned to life, they will try to follow you back into life. You’ve been dead twice, Niane. And we’re standing at a portal. They’re following you. They re here. Its all out of control.”

Keith whipped his tie around Niane’s throat. “I’m sorry, Niane, but this is the only way. I never meant for the experiment to end like this.”

Niane clawed at him, gasping for breath.

Navonna rushed to help her, but Dr Greenfeld tackled her. They rolled about on the floor. Niane could hear more screams, but had no breath for her own. Keith ignored her clawing and struggling. He pushed her to the floor, knees on her chest, tightening the tie about her throat. “Third time’s the charm, Niane.”

Niane lost consciousness. It was all black. It was snowing. She saw a snowman. A very poorly constructed snowman. More like a cone. Its face was covered with icy tentacles. It began to move toward her. Its arms stretched out like thick ropes. It grasped her throat. She couldn’t breathe. The darkness thickened.

Niane was able to draw breath again. Navonna was shaking her, her face desperate. “Baby! Baby! Come on, baby! Just hold on for me!”

Niane coughed and sat up. Her throat ached. She gulped air.

Dr Greenfeld was in worse shape. Navonna had crushed her skull with a table lamp.

The door was smashed open.

“Where’s Dr Ashford?” asked Niane, holding her throat. She was barely conscious. A tie was wrapped loosely about her throat.

“He’s gone. Something broke through the door. I was trying to get away from Dr Greenfeld to help you. All I saw was something like pieces of thick rope reach in and drag Dr Ashford away. Dr Greenfeld turned to look, and I hit the bitch with that lamp. I think I may have killed her.”

A frosted tentacle snaked through the broken door, curled about Dr Greenfeld’s leg, dragged her into the snow.

Navonna was still too stunned to know panic. “Girl, we’ve got to get out of here.” She said it as if she were speaking of leaving a bad singles bar. There were more screams from upstairs. Navonna didn’t seem to hear. Her nose and lips were bleeding, unheeded. She just hung on to Niane, out of it.

“We’ll never make it just now in the snow,” Niane said. “We’ll lock ourselves in our room. I think they won’t harm me.”

“Who?”

“My death fantasies. They only followed me from the other side. The others lacked the power to escape them. Let’s hurry. I think I can protect us both now.”

They huddled together throughout the evening and a sleepless night, hearing an endless barrage of screams and crashing sounds.

“From ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night, dear Lord preserve us.” Navonna must have said that prayer a hundred times as they clutched each other and shuddered at every sound. Niane seemed much calmer now and kept reassuring her. Navonna gave them both some Demerols.

By daybreak it had all stopped. Except the snow. Just flurries.

They crept out cautiously. The smell of death hung over the decaying hotel. There were no sounds.

“Are they all dead?” Navonna wondered.

“Do you want to look?” Niane fussed with the telephone. Yes, the lines really were down. She begged a Demerol off of Navonna.

“All right. We’ll hike it to town. Maybe we can hitch a ride once we hit the highway, if it’s clear. I’m not staying here another moment.” Niane tugged on her coat.

“Are those... those things gone?” Navonna worried.

“Let’s not wait to find out. I think they got what they came for. For now. Come on!”

The wind had blown the dry snow into drifts, clearing much of the gravel road. They had trudged along for about a mile before Navonna fell back and noticed that Niane was leaving no footprints in the snow. Nor a shadow.

Probably just the snow in her eyes and the glare. She hurried to keep up.