Free Penny Dreadful by Will Christopher Baer Page A

coming on and touched my fingers to my eyes. Maybe it was just loneliness.
    Moon is fucking crazy, I thought.
    Jimmy Sky is missing, said Moon. I know that much. He raised his frozen gun to his own ear, grinning as he made a hollow popping sound with his tongue. Or dead maybe. He’s gone to see Elvis. Poor fucking Jimmy. He was a friend of mine.
    What? I said. What did you say?
    The bastard, said Moon. I want you to help me find him.
    What’s this about Elvis?
    Moon’s eyes were flat and dark. I miss him, he said. I miss Jimmy.
    Okay, I said. Okay.
    Eve:
    Alone in bed, sleepless. The sky beyond her window was the thin, nameless color of thick glass and she felt temporarily trapped between night and morning. She lay on her back, tracing two fingers over the length of her body down from the sensitive throat and hollow place above her collarbone, tugging at her nipples until they were hard and then moving on to examine the bruises along her rib cage, the tender places where Adore had nicked her flesh and now she pressed one finger into these sores until the pain was fine and bright. She stroked her belly, her hip bones. She trailed the tips of her fingers lightly, lightly along the inner thigh before moving to touch herself through the thin cotton of her sweatpants and with the other hand moved to stroke one breast in small circles close to but not quite touching the nipple and now she was wet and her hips were moving involuntarily and she slipped her hand under the edge of her pants and through the soft patch of pubic hair and the odd half-formed thought that she really needed to trim down there skated in and out of her head without quite being heard and now she had two fingers inside herself moving in slow collapsing circles but soon a shadowy person emerged in her mind, a ghoulish figure who somehow had Adore’s thin dark body and long fingers and Chrome’s sweet, wet mouth and the cloudy blue eyes of Phineas Poe and still the face belonged to none of them. Eve stopped and her breath came in blunt short gasps that pulled painfully at her bandages. She rolled over, frustrated and cold and her thoughts flying to what Adore had said last night. That it was time for Goo to do a piece of her own, to choose a victim. It wouldn’t be easy, for the choice was not about lust or hatred or domination, but a kind of awful tenderness. And the victim must somehow recognize the difference.
    I was glad when Moon finally said he might go to work. After a prolonged search that involved a lot of cursing and banging around, Moon produced a spare key and I told him I was going to need some money. Moon snapped his fingers and closed one eye. We were standing in the kitchen, a few feet apart. Hands empty, dangling. Shame brushed past mewling. His fur bright with static.
    Money, said Moon. Of course. He grinned too widely.
    He opened the cabinet beneath the sink and poked around. Roach killer and empty mason jars and Ivory liquid and one rotting blue sponge. Moon still hummed to himself and the tune was familiar. It was unlikely but I could have sworn this was from the soundtrack for 2001: Space Odyssey, the opening scene. Two monkeys were fighting over a piece of fruit, or possibly a female. They circle each other, shrieking and spitting. Then it occurs to one of them that he might use a chunk of wood to his advantage. To escalate things. One monkey crushes the skull of another and he is so pleased with himself, with his discovery. He dances around in his enemy’s blood and the camera pulls back for a wide view. Dark silhouettes that could be human. Kubrick. He wasn’t always subtle but he knew what he was talking about. And now Moon had found what he was looking for: a slightly mildewed cigar box. There was a shadowy, conspiratorial glow in his eyes that I didn’t care for. Moon removed a brown envelope from the box and handed it over.
    What’s this?
    Moon didn’t smile. We should talk later, he said.
    With that, he turned and waddled