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till I found one that was totally empty. I might've tried just walking through
the seats but I wasn't sure enough of my control and didn't want to end up
falling out the bottom of the bus altogether.
Now that I had time to catch my breath (such as it was) my thoughts returned
to Lupé. The whole issue of her pregnancy and the positions of clans and
enclaves was suddenly secondary. The demon
Camazotz had come to my home looking for me. What horrors would be visited
upon those it found there? Would my beloved escape? Could any of them survive?
There was no question of any of them being able to stop such a thing. So what
would it do when it didn't find me there? Would it take prisoners to gain
information? Torture them to learn where I had gone?
What could I do?
Even if I could return right now?
The Kid had died in that house but his ghost had traveled to New York by using
me as a focal point a personal haunting, if you will. That was how he was on
hand to meet me when I "died." Or got knocked out of my body, at any rate. I
didn't know how or how long it would take him to get back to
Louisiana.
Or what he could do to help, either.
Meanwhile, I was just riding a bus around Manhattan.
Or not.
The bus turned a corner and I remained behind, the tension in the silver cord
making course deviations a rather limited variable.
The Thresher had fallen back in its pursuit or it would have had me right then
and there. That was the good news.
The bad news was that it had been joined by another. I scrambled for the curb
and this time I made it. And there was enough slack to dodge into the building
proper.
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* * *
The floors were a green-and-white marble polished to a high sheen with
alternating columns of green and white every hundred feet or so, soaring to a
second-story ceiling of white, scalloped domes. It took a few moments to
figure out that I had actually stumbled into a "store."
Excepting the grand columns, the space was cavernous; the counters of jewelry
or unguents and parfums and scarves and belts and accessories but small,
lonely islands in a vast ocean of marbled openness. Around the vast perimeter
were the cycled stations of fashion: garments for the morning, outfits for
midday, ensembles for afternoon, gowns for evening, apparel for night elegant
ladies' clothing for all points of the clock and compass.
The Threshers might be shut out but there were other invaders.
Zombies had breached the doors, spilled into the lobby, fanned across the
mezzanine, shambled to the counters, and lay siege to the salesgirls who
struggled valiantly to face the ancient forces that confronted them!
I blinked.
No. Not zombies. At least not like Boo and Cam and Preacher. These ladies were
still alive though the thick layer of makeup troweled over ancient flesh made
it hard to tell at first. The hair that refracted unnatural bands of color
from the light spectrum still grew from their scalps. Their lips and nails had
been dipped in dye, not blood or entrails, to achieve the presumably desired
effect. They were old and rich.
The young couldn't afford to shop in a store whose inventory equaled the GNP
of a small Mediterranean country.
This place catered to those who could afford a scarf that cost what most women
earned for two months and overtime. It offered dresses that the owners would
only wear once even though a lifetime at minimum wage wouldn't be sufficient
to pay the freight.
Don't get me started on the shoes.
As the matrons performed the shuffling dance of commerce and consumption, I
saw each joined by a veritable entourage of fashionistas, style mavens, and
clothes fetishists who practically fell all over each other as dresses were
considered, footwear slipped on and off, scarves draped, belts slung, and
accessories compiled and recombined. What am I saying? They not only fell all
over each other, they fell through each other. Like Merve and the bar spirits,
the store was infested by the lingering aftertaste of fashion's hunger. The
Apostles Matthew and Luke made it sound pretty bland when they said: "where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also." They should have said:
"where your heart is, is where you're trapped when your time runs out."
In other words, what matters most to you is the cheese on the mousetrap of
eternity.
Nice. The Gospel according to Stephen King.
I wondered where my heart would turn up on the
Post-Apocalyptic-Alley-Alley-Oxen-Free-O-All-Souls Tour . . .
For such a big, empty store it was a very crowded space. Like a kaleidoscope
of reflected wheels and patterns, each living soul participated in the
allemande-left and the do-se-do of shopping while their ghostly compatriots
orbited them like phantom solar systems on crack. And, after a time, I could
make out third parties in the grand farandole across the great marbled floor.
Creatures that were human and yet weren't, ghostly yet not dead, circled the
outer edges of the dance and held out their arms. In their clear and shining
grasps they held gowns and dresses that gave off a light of their very own.
Fabrics that were not of this world shimmered in subtle patterns that
flickered like heat lightning, shimmered like trout in shallow mountain
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