Darkly Dreaming from the Abyss

by Lena Ng

I lowered the brim of my faun-brown fedora as I made my way down the jaded streets of Dodge City. The city lights shone like the end of a smoked down cigarette, amber and hazy. I jammed my hands into the pockets of my trench coat. The grimy walls of the concrete buildings hemmed me in on all sides, a dark, urban cage.

I ducked into an alley and pushed open a door with no sign. I’ve come to this bar before, one of many I’ve haunted: no evident closing time, no pretense of class, a place for the day-drinkers. One day, I’ll run into her. This dame’s elusive, but I’m relentless. I’ve got questions, photos. It’s a well-paid job, and well-worth my time.

She’s gone to the mattresses before. It was weeks before I caught another sighting. The client turned the screws, but you can’t rush results. Didn’t want her to get into a rig and flee the city. From what I gathered, though, he had the money to follow her to the ends of the earth.

I sat at the counter corner of the dank bar, in a place that looked like any of the hundreds blighting the city—dark wood, grimy globe lights, bartender-owner who kept a tight lip with enough muscle to hustle out trouble—the spot a good place to watch the exits.

I was a drink down when she glided in like a perfumed shadow. Red lipstick and heels, the veil of her hat concealing the delicate cat’s eyes, a striking violet, and the fine features of her face. I gave her a minute to settle in. Didn’t want to appear too eager.

“Another whiskey for me. A drink for the lady.” I touched the brim of my hat before removing it and placing it on the bar counter.

“You’re paid by him, aren’t you?” Dame got right to the point.

“Can’t a man buy a looker a drink?”

She gave me a good sizing up and down. “This particular woman at this particular time?”

“Maybe you’ve got a suspicious personality.” I shrugged and sipped my whiskey, enjoyed the slow burn.

She lowered her eyes, picked up her coat and purse, and moved to seat herself at my end of the bar. “Can’t be too careful of strangers.”

I took another sip. The burn from the whiskey flowed up my arm. My bum shoulder acting up again, a souvenir from an old take-down. Good thing it wasn’t my shooting arm. “Who’s looking for you?”

“An ex. Divorced two years, but can’t quit me. Now wants me back.”

“You’ve got someone new?”

“Not really.” She took a drink and looked up at me through the fan of her long, black lashes. “Not sure you’re my type.”

“Sounds like trouble.”

“More than you know.” She finished her drink and picked up her purse.

“Wait a second, Anna.” I knew her name from the report I had been given. I gripped her arm harder than I intended. I didn’t track her all this time to let her fly off now.

Her lovely face twisted into a scowl. “You know my name. So what’s yours?

“Colt.”

“You have no idea who you’re working for. Have you ever seen him? He was nice at first, but he turned into a pig.”

I smiled as she struggled against my grasp. “You can make this hard for yourself or you can make it easy.”

She stopped struggling and leaned against my arm. My heart beat faster at the smell of her perfume. “Before you turn me in, hear me out.”

I was rather curious. What was it about her that could cast such as spell? Wasn’t one woman like any other? She was an exotic one, though. Bright violent jewels for eyes, skin with an interior glow like the finest porcelain. “Walk and talk then.”

She clutched her things while I laid cash on the counter. My hand was still wrapped around the crook of her arm as we made our way into the night-washed streets.

Her heels tapped on the pavement. “I’ve got a place. Why the rush? A chat, a bit of dinner, and I’ll go anywhere you need me to go.”

She led the way up a dimly lit staircase. Her small apartment opened to a sitting area, a kitchenette, a bedroom overlooking the street, all painted in a dark burgundy. Even the plush sofa was the same colour. Anna hung her hat on the coat rack, took off my fedora and hung it there as well. She lit some candles. I poured myself a drink from the brass bar trolley.

She slipped off her shoes and went into the bedroom, not bothering to shut the door. She emerged in a blue satin robe, tied around the waist with a sash. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said and gestured to the sofa. Her figure was framed by the city lights through the window.

As I walked across the floor, she pulled me towards her. Her lips met mine in a lingering kiss. She tasted like wine and honey. Her heartbeat drummed against my chest. “Colt, help me,” she whispered. She tilted her head, and I glanced out the window.

The strength of his stare alerted me to his presence. There, beneath a lamp post, he stood for me to see. A heavy frame, he looked both man and beast. Close-set, glittering eyes, large fleshy pink ears, heavy jowls, and instead of a nose, a large round snout; instead of hands, a set of trotters. He really was a pig man, glaring at our silhouettes through the apartment window.

He had wanted to catch her with another man. I now was that man. I felt the hate in his glare as he backed into the shadows.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Anna began to shake. She bolted back into the bedroom and threw on a black outfit. “We’ve got to go.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the apartment.

Our footsteps echoed down the stairwell. Voices arose from the walls. 11:55. Five more minutes. Use the left arm. We’ll wait for the governor’s call. At the bottom of the staircase, I slammed open a steel door, took a glance at which direction to turn. The door locked shut.

A large shadow loomed before us. How could this be real, a man with a head of a pig? I must be in a nightmare. The walls of the alley pulsed in and out.

No stay of execution. The disembodied voice rumbled from the clouds or perhaps a voice inside my head. Was I in a dream? By some trick of the city lights, my hands seemed translucent. Maybe I was the shadowy figure. Maybe the Pig Man was dreaming of me.

I reached into my trench coat. Instead of a gun, I pulled out a hatchet. Without time to wonder how that got in there, I started the butchering. The blows made a low thunk at each wield of the blade. The first slice was across the flabby pink throat. I was baptized in a rush of bright arterial blood. The Pig Man’s eyes grew glassy. He sank to his knees. I hacked him into large pieces. I was proud of my work, the neat cuts, no waste of movement. I wanted to display the chops under glass.

Too bad no butcher would take this meat.

Afterward, my arm was burning like you wouldn’t believe. Anna had disappeared, likely fled from the carnage. Never mind, never knew a dame with a strong stomach. I found her once, I’d find her again. Like the Pig Man, she had cast her spell over me.

I kicked in a basement window and tossed in the pieces—the haunches, the belly, the trotters, and lastly, the staring, glassy-eyed head. Could I be convicted for slaughtering a pig? I ducked in the building through the broken window and was met by a barren room with a dirt floor. A room designed for burial. How did it know I would need it? I picked up a shovel that leaned against a wall and dug. Sweat stung my eyes, dripped down my shoulders, burned along my skin.

I dug deep enough, and when I was about to toss in the pig’s head, I saw it. A delicate hand, nails painted in red, unearthed. I dropped to my knees. Instead of planting a body into a grave, I dug a body out.

Her violet cat’s eyes were open. Her fragrance was mixed with the smell of decay. Anna, the woman whom I was with barely an hour before, now rotting in a grave. It couldn’t be real. What kind of nightmare was this? I choked on my horror, tore at my hair, gritted my teeth. Both hands in front of me, I stumbled backwards, windmilling my arms—

—and landed on plush red velvet carpet. “Sir, let me help you.” A uniformed usher grasped my elbow and helped me to my feet. Teatro Grosttesco was embroidered in navy thread on his red uniform. He looked at me expectantly, so I swallowed my confusion and followed him into the theatre.

Hard gazes trailed my walk down the aisle, the faces oddly familiar, like flash of déjà vu. I smoothed back my hair, wiped the dirt from my face with my sleeve. The usher stood in front of an empty aisle and pointed to the middle seat.

I sat on a red velvet theatre seat in the middle of the empty row. The house lights switched off and the red curtains pulled back. A woman, dressed in scarlet silk, took to the stage.

Anna?

The burning up my left arm felt like fire eroding the flesh from the inside. My heart pounded on the cage of my ribs, trying to burst out of my chest. The singer opened her mouth wide enough I could saw her vibrating tonsils.

From the left of the stage, a figure crawled on all fours. He looked up and I clamped a hand over my mouth, fear bulging my eyes. The snout, the black, close-set eyes. The Pig Man, the creature that had followed me, and I butchered him in an alley, back from the dead and coated in blood.  The corners of his mouth stretched out in a pink, meaty smile. Slowly, he stood. He pointed at me and gestured. I stood, prepared to run, but before I could flee, I took a step and found myself on the stage. I squinted at the bright lights. In the audience, the Pig Man had taken my seat. He ran a finger across his neck, miming a slice.

The singer turned to me, a twin of Anna, though she acted as though she didn’t recognize me. She opened her mouth wide enough to become a cave. My head spun. My breath came in shallow gasps. My knees buckled, I collapsed forward, and fell into its depths, arms flailing like swimming in an ocean of black ink.

I swam in a void of opaque black. My heartbeat thumped in my ears, my breathing once racing, now slow and deep.

I looked ahead and saw a light at the tunnel’s end, dull at first, then brighter and brighter. The light shone directly into my eyes, first the left, then the right. A spectacled man, in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck, held the small flashlight and declared, “His eyes are still dilating. He’s not dead yet. Give it a few minutes.”

I tried to sit up, but wide leather straps held me down on a gurney. Attached to my left arm was an IV line, and the infusion was liquid fire. A priest in stained white robes, with eyes that looked like they had never slept, stood over me holding a ragged burgundy Bible. He leaned forward, and with breath hot and rank, mumbled, “Do you have any last words?”

The seated audience members, I recognized: my ex-wife’s—Anna’s—parents. Although I haven’t seen them in years, I recognized them, grief and anger still fresh on their faces. The others I recognized as well—her dead lover’s family. I saw them only at the trial, but their expressions of hate no one could ever forget.

Both of them got what was coming to them, and now I was getting what was coming to me.

“Rot in hell, pig!” a woman screamed as the dreaming drugs finally tipped me into the eternal abyss.