X: Chaos in Two Dimensions

X: Chapter 4

X showed up the next morning, closer to ten. He grunted an indecipherable hello and motioned for me to follow him out of the office. I did and he locked the door behind me.
Outside the office was his black Jeep Grand Cherokee, the expensive Limited model. He tossed my leather traveling bag into the back and got in behind the wheel. I took shotgun.
We were off with only a slight peeling of rubber left by the office, something to remember us by.
We got to the 70 and headed west. A few exits past Golden he pulled off the interstate and headed into the mountains.
Neither of us said anything until we got to a sign which indicated that Gaston was two miles ahead of us.
X glanced at me and said, "Well, here we are. I hope I don't regret coming here. Or taking you with me."
"Gee, boss, thanks for the kind thoughts. After such a beautiful drive I needed the downer. I feel so much better now."
Neither of us said anything else as X slowed down to a sedate 25 miles per hour and we drove through the main drag in Gaston, all four blocks of it.
Even taking your typical small town into consideration, this one seemed more retarded than usual. I mean, there was no McDonalds or Pizza Hut or even a 7-11. There was nothing that I could see that smacked of being more recent in origin than sometime in the early fifties.
There was a general feeling of age and dust and, well, decay. Every building seemed to be in need of maintenance. The building with the sign saying "Library" had two broken windows which appeared to have been boarded over by a guy with one hand.
There were a few shops, in fact one building on a corner of the intersection with the only traffic light, had the words "Malt Shoppe" painted on the glass. I kid you not.
Three blocks into Gaston there was a park on the south side of the road. Next to the park was the town hall and police station, both housed in a two story building that looked like condemning it would be a half step. A small bomb would have been a blessing.
I saw a general store, a post office and, two blocks down from the Malt Shoppe, Pinkies Diner. The funeral home was by far the largest single building to be seen. It also needed a lot of work.
I had counted ten cars parked on the street since we hit Gaston. They all were rust buckets. We were in the only mobile automobile in the town.
At the end of the four block stretch was a wooden one story building with several smaller wooden buildings surrounding it. A neon sign, the only one I had seen, was still on, and said OTEL. X pulled in and killed the engine.
Both of us sat and looked around. I don't know about X, but I expected to see a couple of characters with close set eyes and small ears playing banjos on the stoop.
I felt vaguely disappointed when we got out of the car and walked into the office. There was no one there.
X rang a bell lying on the counter. No one responded for almost five minutes, during which time I cased the place. Aside from three chairs with a half inch of dust on the seats and a copy of the Gaston Gazette dated June 5, 1987, there wasn't much to find. I didn't go behind the counter, but I could see from the dust in the twenty-odd numbered niches, which I assumed were associated with the rooms for rent, that business hadn't been hopping.
Gee, and Gaston was such a happening place, too!
A door to the next room slowly creaked open and an old guy who limped like Walter Brennan moved with slug-like speed behind the counter.
"Good afternoon," X said, "We would like to rent a room for several days."
The old Jasper spit some tobacco juice on the floor and said, "Don't got no rooms to rent. All full."
He looked at the space between us, his eyes blank.
"Oh, come on," I began, but X glared at me. I shut up.
"We only need to be here for a few days. I'm certain you could find some place for us to stay."
The guy took that in and replied with a voice that sounded like wind whistling through the trees, it was so breathy, "No place to rent. Go away."
X stepped closer to the counter and stared into the old man's face. "My name is not necessary. You may call me X. My associate and I want to rent a room for several days."
The old fart seemed to take a vacation. His eyes closed and he swayed on his feet for over a minute. When he opened his eyes again they were still blank, but he had a new tune to play.
"X. Yes. You may stay."
He bent over stiffly and straightened up with a key in his gnarled paw. He threw it on the counter in front of X.
"Room 6, in the front."
X took out his wallet, but the old guy had already turned and was making his way to the door he had originally come out of.
X put his wallet away, turned to me and said, "I see that we are expected."
He turned and I followed him out of the office and back into the car. We drove the fifty yards to room 6, parked in front of it, piled out and grabbed our luggage.
X walked to the small cabin marked 5 and scrapped dirt off the window before he peered inside. Seconds later, he was at the door marked 6 and used the key to get us inside.
Imagine my surprise when I saw two double beds, neatly made up, and no dust.
I threw myself onto the bed closest to the dirty window and said, "What did you mean that we were expected?"
X gestured around us. "I'll bet that this is the only room which is made up. Room five was empty except for a broken bed. There was no other furniture in the room, nor any linens. This room was made up just for us."
I felt a small frisson of discomfort crawl along my spine for a few moments.
"You mean that the old guy knew we were coming, right?"
"No, Grady, not the old man. He was told to fix this room up for us."
"He was told we were coming?"
"Of course."
God, I hate it when he says that.
We unpacked our meager belongings and decided to go out for a walk around beautiful downtown Gaston.
I put my wind-breaker on so no one else would notice the 9 mm I wore in a shoulder holster. X was more casual. He tucked his 9 mm pistol into his pants at the small of his back and wore his shirt out of his pants.
I slammed the door behind us and we went out to see if anyone else lived in Gaston.
You could almost smell the stagnation that enveloped the town. We walked through the park. There wasn't even a bird in the trees.
We regained the sidewalk and kept moving. There was no breeze and it was hot. For some reason, I didn't think that was the entire cause of the sweat running down my neck and face.
No one was inside any of the small shops we passed. The windows were uniformly dirty and it didn't appear that anyone had been inside of them for months. Maybe even years.
At the end of the town's main street, we crossed over to the other side and started walking back towards the motel. Nothing was different on that side of the street until we reached Pinkies Diner. There were two people in there.
Our entrance into the diner was heralded by the off-key tinkling of the dented metal bell which hung over the door. Looking around, I saw a middle aged man sitting at the counter, a cup of coffee in front of him, and a woman in her mid-thirties, with a worn face, standing in front of him. X signaled me and we sat at the counter, me three seats to the left of the man.
We sat silently for several minutes observing the two people. Actually, observing is too strong a word, because nothing was happening. It was as if they were two manikins on display. Neither said a word and neither moved a muscle. They seemed frozen in place.
Either that, or time had stopped for every one but my partner and I.
X stood up and walked behind the counter and up to the waitress. He passed his hand in front of her face several times.
Nothing happened. She didn't even blink.
X stepped back, went in front of the counter and sat next to the doll like figure of the man.
He cleared his throat and said, somewhere in the direction of the waitress, "My name is X. Would it be possible to get some coffee?"
Another thirty seconds went by. Finally, the waitress seemed to crank herself up and turn towards X. She reminded me of the animatronics at Disney Land.
By the time she had turned towards X, the guy had oiled his neck and turned his head towards my partner.
X glanced at me. I moved to the seat next to his. The waitress finished walking two feet so that she stood in front of us. She moved like the Tin Man with a year's worth of rust in his joints.
X smiled again and asked for coffee. The waitress, with obvious difficulty, swiveled her head in my direction. I asked for a diet soda.
She moved like a fish embedded in ice, as she turned to get our orders.
Meanwhile, the guy next to X opened his mouth. It stayed open for several seconds. He closed it and tried again. This time he spoke.
"You are visiting us?"
The guy would lose points for grammar, but the breathy voice was almost identical to the old guy we talked to in the motel.
"Yes," said X, "We expect to be around here for several days. Sort of a working vacation."
It seemed to take some time while the man tried to assimilate the information.
I took the time to take a better look at him. He wore a wrinkled brown suit with a yellow tie. His white shirt was dirty and several buttons threatened to pop over his prominent gut.
His face, like the waitress's and the motel attendant's, was masked. No emotion showed. No muscles moved, except the lips when he spoke.
It was like talking to a wooden doll.
It was creepy as hell.
His voice creaked out again. "We don't get many visitors here."
X nodded and added, "We came to see some old friends of ours, the Westerfields. Can you tell me how to get to their home?"
Again there was a lengthy processing time before the guy answered.
He ran his tongue over his lips. There wasn't any moisture on it.
"Go to the light and then left for three miles. Make a right at the road sign. They live a mile further."
With that said, the man's head turned back to the counter and his eyes closed. His head sagged down. It looked like his spring had worn down.
Speaking of springs, the waitress had re-entered the space behind the counter from the kitchen area and stopped. She had a cup and saucer with dark liquid in one hand and a glass of brown liquid in the other. She had just stopped, her weight on one foot, in mid-stride. The cup and saucer fell to the floor, the liquid splashing over her white stockings. She remained frozen where she stood.
X touched my arm and I followed him back out into the street. The bell didn't disturb anyone that I could see.
We walked to the front of the next dirty store and X stopped. I turned to him and asked, "What was that, claymation?"
X shook his head.
"No, I think that they were more of the walking dead, left there to give us the information we needed."
"More zombies?"
"Call them what you wish," X said, "But they were there specifically for us."
"I don't like the fact that we've been so well anticipated," I grumped.
"I think that the fun hasn't started yet. Remember I told you that I follow my hunches? Well, I have an idea that we're going to be having some excitement in the not so distant future."
I looked around the desolate town. "My hunch tells me to get the hell out of here, now!"
Shrugging, X added, "Remember, you insisted on coming with me."
"Well, when you're right, you're right, X. What's our next move?"
Pointing to the next block, X said, "Let's go visit the local constabulary and see where they stand."
"You mean, if they stand," I added.
X turned on his heel and I followed him to the run-down building which advertised itself as the city hall and the police station.
We entered through a door which was so warped it couldn't close. The hallway had a menu with arrows pointing to the right for the mayor's office, and to the left for the police department.
We went right and knocked at the door down a short hallway. No one answered.
I turned the knob and walked into the office.
It was dark, the curtains closed over the windows, but it smelled musty and there was a slightly fetid scent over-riding the general dankness.
The ceiling lights flashed on. I turned quickly, my hand on my gun, but I saw X's hand moving down from the light switch on the wall.
We moved through the front room, outfitted for a secretary, with a desk and lamp. Standing next to the lamp was a bottle of red nail polish.
I moved towards the door to the next room. As I reached for the door knob X whispered, "Grady!"
I froze and waited until X had joined me at the door, his gun in his right hand. He indicated the knob and nodded.
I opened the door, twisting the knob and pushing it open at the same time I jumped back behind the wall.
X went through the door, his gun raised in a two handed grip, the barrel pointed at the ceiling. He took several steps and stopped. He hissed my name. I joined him, duck walking into the room, my hand on the butt of my gun.
There was no one in the dark room, but the fetid smell was stronger. I recognized it now, the combination of blood and human excrement. I pulled out my gun and moved to the right. X went left.
I couldn't see anything behind the big desk, so I reached with my left and flicked on the desk lamp.
On the seat and under the desk was a dark puddle with the consistency of mud. It was dried out on the surface, as far as I could see.
X walked up to the desk chair and then went down on one knee as he examined the stuff. He bent over it and sniffed. I was amazed that he didn't retch, or even cough.
He stood up and indicated we should leave, but his finger in front of his lips signaled me to remain quiet.
We exited the mayor's office, pulled the door closed and walked over to the door marked Police.
X didn’t bother to knock. He pushed the door open and walked in, his gun held out of sight behind his back. I remained directly behind him.
A dim florescent bulb was lit on the ceiling. We split up and walked along either side of the room. There was a door at the back, marked Sheriff. I got there first and waited for X to join me before I opened the door.
I couldn't detect any odor emanating from the room at first. When I pushed the door open, I caught a scent of age and dust. I flicked on the light switch as X walked into the room. We both stood still when we saw, seated at the desk, a gray haired man wearing a police uniform, slumped over the desk top, his head on his arms as if he was sleeping. The patch on his sleeve said Sheriff.
X walked up to the desk and felt his carotid artery. He looked at me and shook his head. The man was dead.
A fast look around the room didn't yield anything of note.
I started to speak, but X again held his finger to his lips, indicating quiet, and I watched him as he bent over the body slumped over the desk.
In measured tones, he said, "Sheriff, my name is X. I wanted to meet you and introduce myself. My associate and I are in Gaston for a few days."
Nothing happened.
I walked over to one of the chairs in front of the desk and sat down. X hadn't moved.
I looked at X and at the body, then back at X. A flicker of movement caught my eye. The dried skin on the hands and fingers of the dead man crackled as they slowly began to flex.
My breath caught in my throat. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the Sheriff's head began to lift off of his arms and straighten itself out on its neck.
X moved to the chair next to mine and sat down. I figured he must have thought of this as watching an afternoon matinee.
When the Sheriff's head was straight, the eyelids began to move. It only took more than a minute for them to open and reveal the blank gaze from raisened, brown orbs.
The mouth didn't take too long to open. The jaw just fell open.
I looked at X again, who calmly kept his attention focused on the spectacle occurring in front of us.
I reminded myself to tell him that zombies did exist.
Indeed.
The same breathy voice we heard coming from the motel manager, like wind blowing through tree branches, emanated from the dry mouth.
"I knew you would come."
X appeared unperturbed as he answered, "Did you?"
"Yes."
There was a sibilance of the s which reminded me of the rattle of a snake.
"You seem to know me," X said, "But I am afraid that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you."
Several seconds of silence followed. Then the voice again whistled through the musty air of the Sheriff's office.
"You are wrong. We have met many times, you and I. It has been our destiny."
A puzzled look passed over X's face. Then it regained its placid expression.
Me? I wanted out of there.
X remained silent as the minutes passed. Finally, the dry voice came again.
"You are here to find me. You can not. Do not presume too much."
X jumped into the conversation. "I don't know who you are. Nor what to presume."
The voice enjoyed an even more sibilant laugh. The hairs on the back of my neck wanted to get out of the room before the rest of me, but I sat tight.
Also, I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of X when I wet myself.
"You may remember me as the Ancient One. I may be the only one of my kind that remains. You should know this, as you are responsible for making that so.
"I have brought you here to finish things. To be rid of my ages-old enemy."
Calmly, X stated, "We have weapons to stop you."
On cue, I waved my 9 mm in front of me.
The Ancient One laughed again. I wondered if he had lips like a chicken's.
"Guns? They will not stop me. You will not stop me. It is my time."
"Your time for what?" X asked.
"Transcendence."
"Of course," X replied.
"I will stop you, as you state I have many times in the past. You may be certain of that."
The laugh seemed a bit forced when it came again, but, what did I know about Ancient Ones? He could have been wetting himself at what he considered to be the humor in X's reply.
"Why have you decimated this town and killed all of its people?"
"Because I could. Easily. While I waited for you."
The last words seemed a bit petulant, coming from something that wasted all of the people in a small town.
"I am here now. I will find you."
Seconds went by before the voice returned. This time it was more solid, almost viscous with menace.
"Pray to your God that you do not, for this time I will surely prevail. Until that time, when we do meet again for the last time, I will do as I choose and allow you to race after me as one who chases the wind. I will return for you when I wish it. You will not prevail."
The interview must have been over, at least as far as the Ancient One was concerned, because the Sheriff's body disintegrated before our eyes. It just broke down into dust. The head made a soft thump as it fell onto the desk and dissolved into something like sawdust.
I had nothing to say as I sat in the chair next to X. I waited for him to make the next move. In time, several minutes at least, X got out of his chair and walked out of the office and then out of the building. I followed, maybe a few inches behind him.
When we reached the deserted street X put his gun away. I did likewise. Then we walked back to our room at the motel.
I had only about a million questions to ask.
The expression on X's face was mute evidence that I needed to wait a bit before I opened my mouth.
When we reached the motel, X went to his Jeep and opened the back. He lifted up the carpet, exposing a metal door he had installed. He opened it and took out a large gauge shot gun, which he threw to me, along with a box of shells, and, from what I could see, a fully automatic machine gun, an Uzi, along with several stuffed ammunition clips.
He replaced the rug, closed and locked the car and went into our room, his Uzi poking into the room before he did.
He stood stock still, his back not in the room. I saw him swing his gun around in the little room. When he was satisfied, he motioned for me to join him.
The neat, clean room we had been in earlier was gone, as were the beds. Our bags were lying on the floor which showed footprints in the thick dust covering it. The bags lay where they would have been if the beds they had been placed on were still in the room. In the middle of the floor, at the end of a third set of footprints which had dragged through the dust was a larger mound of dust.
"Our host, I presume," I said, jabbing my thumb at the circular shaped pile of dust.
A curt nod was all I got from X.
He stood at the door and I tracked some more foot prints in the dust while I retrieved our bags. I threw them into the back of the Jeep as X climbed behind the wheel. This time I rode shotgun with the correct equipment.
X turned the engine over and sat for a moment, deep in thought.
"Where to, oh Leadercrantz?" I asked.
He looked at me, ignoring my small fit of humor, and said, "The Westerfield farm."
He wheeled out of the parking lot and headed for the traffic light which still flashed alternating colors for the hell of it, I thought. He turned at the light and followed the directions given by the man in the diner.
Out of witticisms, I checked the load on the shotgun and held it ready. The daylight was beginning to fade, throwing shadows over the car as it traveled between the close set trees on either side of the road, which turned to dirt when we made our last turn to reach the Westerfield home.