“Hollering won’t do you no good, Son,” Jim said. “And me and Edgar ain’t here to hurt you.”

  His reassurance did little to reassure me. All I knew of them were their shadows on the wall, ears sticking up high on their heads like two rabbits or donkeys or something. The only reference and explanation I had for that was the rabbit-man on floor Y, and when Tracy had gone into his room, she’d come back out with a white spot in the middle of her forehead.

  Subject Unicorn, I thought.

  But why had the rabbit-man been so fucked up? He was barely crawling out of the room, all flesh and moan. And then in the emerald skyway there had been many anthropomorphized people floating in the air, all seemingly dead.

  Why were there rabbit men here, cognizant?

  I still could not move my head very well. I saw one of their arms move.

  “Don’t touch her,” I said.

  “Son, I’m not gonna,” Jim said, “and neither is Edgar. I was reaching for a cigarette, now, I can light you one if you like. You smoke? They’re filterless. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Well, I was offering you a cigarette, and—”

  “You said filterless,” I said. “I smoke Lucky Strike. What do you call that?”

  “Why, I’d call it lucky,” Jim said, chuckling. “Don’t know about a Lucky Strike, but at least the others or the mothers felt you should have a smoke while you climb.”

  “Where did you get them, Jim?” I wriggled in my cocoon, giving up and using my hands to slowly pull at the top near the hole I’d started. It was like pulling taffy now. For some reason, inside the cocoon was easier than outside.

  “Found em,” Jim said, “in one of the rooms where the subjects start.”

  I stopped midway through a difficult tear on the pink, grunting and breathing hard. “Here? Or the other building? Where are we?” I paused as I saw the shadow of a tall ear twitching on the wall. “Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit! Is there a moon in here? Is that why—why—your ears…?”

  A shadow shook its head. “Afraid not,” Jim said. “Not here, I mean. And to me, your ears are the funny ones. Meaning no offense, there, mind you.”

  “The other stirs again,” said the other voice—Edgar, I thought Jim had named him. “How long until the next Pink?”

  I heard a small clink.

  “Twelve hours by my watch, Edgar, but you know you’re welcome to leave me to them if you wish,” Jim said.

  The other did not respond.

  Eyes flicking from shadow to shadow, I said, “I’ll take one.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “A cigarette,” I said. “If you’re still offering.”

  “Well, of course I’m still offering,” Jim said. “Seems one of the few joys we’re awarded in this place, and far be it from me to deny joy to another climber.”

  “Alright, Doc,” Edgar said.

  “What?” Jim said.

  “Just alright. Just, you said enough.”

  I saw the shadow of smoke tendrils surrounding a hulking form as Jim came near.

  He was black with a shaved head, oblong in shape like a mango or pear. He wore ovular spectacles, and every line worn into his face curled with smile. He wore a suit and red tie.

  The only bits of Jim that were out of place were the fleshy ears growing up from the sides of his head like the flutes of tulips, flirting between rabbit and human. I thought of the island in Pinocchio with the bad kids.

  Hee-haw.

  “There you are, Son,” Jim said, bending over me to slowly lower the filterless cigarette into my mouth.

  I flinched my head to the side at first, and Jim was patient, waiting until I nodded him on. I sucked in hard like it could give me something that cigarettes never could, like nectar, like sustenance, like—Pink.

  “There now,” Jim said, smiling down. “How do you feel?”

  “Like shit.”

  “That’s expected,” Jim said, nodding, “but how do you feel … let me put it this way—do you feel energized, rested, full, maybe?”

  I pulled apart a strand of the Pink which tore into a patch of give, and I was able to get it down to my chest before it snagged again.

  “I suppose,” I said.

  “Good,” Jim said, “I’ll just leave you to it then.” He limped off a few steps, favoring his right, and for a moment I saw he had the kind of bulging belly that makes a man in a suit look pregnant. He paused. “Name’s Jim. But everyone calls me Doc.”

  “Everyone?” I said.

  “Well … everyone before, ifya take my meaning.”

  He waited there, his mango-shaped head cocked, frowning.

  “My name’s Andy,” I said, “if that’s what you’re waiting for. Her name is Tracy.”

  “Andy and Tracy,” Jim, or Doc, said, as if weighing these basic names and the meanings behind their centuries of use. “Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, Andy. The old curmudgeon is Edgar. We come from the same place, though our, uh, orders, if you will, differ somewhat. I am a professor of philosophy at the University of the Aeld, while Edgar—”

  “While never mind what Edgar is,” Edgar said.

  Doc sniffed a laugh off and shrugged his apology at me before returning to Edgar.

  I turned my head to let ash fall from the dwindling tip of the Lucky Strike, then took in another pull. My balls were very cramped in the jean shorts. What kind of creep dresses their victims in jean shorts? I wished to reach down and give a tug to let them breathe, but it was impossible. I only had room near my chest.

  “Ah shit. Now who the fuck are you bitches?”

  Doc let out an indulgent, almost ashamed laugh, like a repressed sneeze, while Edgar remained silent.

  “My name is Jim—but please, call me Doc, darlin.”

  “The fuck you think you are callin me darlin?” Tracy said, and the vinegar went right out of my blood, my arms dropping from their cramped work as I laughed, relieved to hear her voice—relieved.

  “I apologize if I offended,” Doc warbled, and I imagined him giving her a southern gentleman’s bow, at least the kind I’d seen in movies where the guy kind of just, like, bends at the chest and that’s all.

  “Fuck your apology. Get me out of this thing. And who’s the skinny creep?” Tracy paused a moment. There was movement. “I can’t reach em. Oh fuck, I can’t fuckin reach em, Andy! Where’s Andy? I can’t reach em!”

  “Shit,” I said, starting at the Pink with new vigor.

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  “Do not help her,” Edgar said.

  “I don’t know what the fuck your problem is, Edgar, but her medicine is in our pockets.”

  “What medicine?” Edgar said.

  “Medicine,” I said, “that she’ll die without.”

  “Ain’t gonna fuckin die,” Tracy said. “Just … need it is all.”

  “Need generally implies mortal stakes,” Edgar said.

  “Who asked you, long tall and creepy? And besides, who are—”

  Then Tracy screamed, and amidst some ululating, I made out only, “Ears,” “Andy,” “Bunnies,” and, “Out.” “Out.” “Out.”

  Then the vomiting.

  I grunted as my grip slipped.

  “Come on, Edgar,” Doc said.

  “What medicine?” Edgar said.

  “It’s only one of three. She can learn to do it on her own later, when we tell her how. Only one of three.” I saw Doc’s shadow fingers point and wave.

  “Painkillers,” I said.

  “Like alphate?” Edgar said.

  “No, like morphine,” I said, grunting again. “Jesus, fuck it all. Like a lot of fucking morphine, and you can have some if you help her.”

  “Don’t let em touch me, Andy”

  “This morphine. Does it—”

  “Now listen here, you old junkie,” Doc said, “from the look of her, and the sound of it, yes, it’s like alphate. Now help me peel the Pink!” It was the closest I’d heard Doc come to shouting yet.

  The two shadows now looked like they were reaching down and digging the guts from a recent kill, coming up with handfuls of goop that they slung to the ground. They moved quickly, Edgar faster than Doc—actually, the thinner shadow of Edgar moved too fast.

  Doc paused to wipe his brow. Tracy bawled her protest. Edgar went on ripping, his hands diving in fishknife arcs, flinging Pink away, away, away, some of it landing on my face. The stuff, once removed, had the weightlessness of dried caulk.

  As I watched Edgar’s shadow work, the image of a werewolf came to mind, the way he bent over Tracy, kind of looming over her, his arms very long, longer than Doc’s.

  Here was the predator of the two.

  There was a waving, disembodied hand reaching up from the ground, like a zombie from the grave in a shitty horror film. We had the wolf, and the zombie of Tracy, so that left me and Doc, I supposed, as the two humans. The hand whipped out toward the thin man who jumped back, again in a movement too fast, then the hand was gone.

  “Back the fuck up,” Tracy said, and I saw her shadow stand, pills a rattle as she rushed toward me.

  She knelt. “Don’t come near me, or I swear to Christ I’ll eat all of them,” Tracy said.

  “Go right ahead, darlin—I mean, uh, Tracy,” Doc said, breath heavy. “I’m bushed.”

  He slumped against the wall. Edgar’s shadow sat upright, silent.

  Not a werewolf, I thought, more like one of those humanoid cat-gods in hieroglyphics. But with bunny ears.

  Tracy’s eyes never left the two men as she unpopped the top of the morphine and downed three. She didn’t seem to have as much trouble swallowing this time.

  “You two find a pack of Newports with some junk in it?”

  “The fishing village in Aeldra?” Doc said. “Or the city in Vassa?”

  “I don’t know what any of that shit is,” Tracy said, pulling a cigarette from her now-squished pack. “This is a Newport.” She held up the pack. “This is a pack of Newports. Either of you seen one?”

  It overrode her fear of their ears, that need for instant relief.

  “Afraid not,” Doc said.

  Tracy shivered as she put one of her small hands on the V I had torn in my pink prison, helping me pull. We made it down to my waist before Doc said, “Oh, Edgar, this is foolishness.”

  “No, I got this, don’t need no help from bunny-eared—”

  “Tracy,” I said, putting a hand on hers, which I could see was struggling to keep hold of the Pink. She was weak. “Just let him.”

  ***

  Narrow stairs and slim ridged spaces behind radiators. They come. In the pockets of silence, they are glued to the back of heads so those attuned to their channel cannot see, can only feel the shiver of tusk lightly tracing lines of spine.

  While pressing the reset on a water heater, pale light curls on the basement wall—they call. See the wall.

  Yellow, yellow, yellow is the wall, black flakes peppering. Clothes hang from a wire strung by previous owners. Above are the hidden tunnels of house carrying warm air to floors above. Totes bend with their own weight in stacks of unpacked memories. The stain of water rusts its lines to either side, but in the middle is yellow, yellow, yellow.

  Look at the wall, they call, they call, and see in the silence of basement this is here but not here, and you can look but not touch. So you never touch, knowing this in some unbelieved cut of subconscious, though the logical, button-pushing half says we must sleep tonight, so deny, deny, deny.

  But they surround us, all through the night. On empty walls, they hang, they are here, but not here. Until we are there.

  Until we are there.

  ***

  It was odd the things I felt while Edgar dug me out. When I touched his skin, I had a tickling sense in my stomach, like the depersonalization of the tusk. Though, when the tusk touched me, distinct images would come, as if the creatures were pressing some movie center in the brain, whereas Edgar’s touch was more suggestive, like a vibe you get from a stranger, but stronger.

  I had this friend, Simone, on the outside of this goddamn tower. She was like that. You could feel things coming off her as if she bled a mist of feeling, and if you were downwind, you’d go inside her for a second.

  Simone was a meth girl, green teeth and all. She’d had a stillborn baby the year before I met her, but she still felt pregnant.

  I’ll repeat that. Her baby was stillborn. She still felt pregnant.

  She would go to NA and AA meetings, and she would talk about her baby like it was still alive, and all the old-timers would tell her to keep coming back, and tell her they were glad she was there, knowing full on how wound Simone was on speed, and, I suspect, knowing also that Simone was telling the truth on some level of consciousness, because, as I said, it sort of leaked out of her.

  The baby’s name was Benny. Benny would talk through her sometimes, saying far-out shit about walls, about what he saw in the room, about where not to go, where not to look, because, apparently, according to Benny, even looking in certain directions was dangerous. Watching certain things was dangerous too. And though I would tell myself that this was all a kind of only true if you believe it sort of thing, I admit I avoided whatever it was Benny warned against, you know, just in case.

  I mean Simone would become completely lucid when her stillborn, long-dead baby started talking. Even her moon-sized pupils would shrink like Benny wanted you to know this was not some methamphetamine psychosis, this was the real deal, and he had died to bring this moment of supernatural sobriety to you.

  From the wall, they call.

  The blank wall. That was what the electric shock coming from Edgar’s skin had said, and it was so like those times I’d sat with Simone, she on her crystal, me on my gentleman’s meth, the pill-kind—I say ‘sit’, but we were both fidgeting, of course, and standing, and getting up, and replacing legs of tables with those wooden dolls that have several layers of smaller dolls inside—it was so like those times that I went still and breathed out a single, familiar “Oh.”

  Because I had looked at that wrong wall when the hot water heater’s thermostat broke, just after I’d watched the Black Tongue Tape, which Benny had warned me against watching, just as the tape itself warned the viewer from the start not to watch or they would be invaded by a presence that would never leave, and then instructed the viewer of the mudra and the mantra for enduring—not avoiding, but enduring—the presence.

  I’d looked at that blank wall, and I’d known, all while my daughter slept upstairs. Do not look at the wall. Benny hadn’t said it, no, but I’d known. I knew that wall was one of those spots Benny would have warned against had he seen it through his mother’s meth-widened eyes.

  Fucking take me, I said to it. Fucking KILL me.

  The Black Tongue.

  The yellow wall.

  Some things, you’re not meant to watch.

  Black Tongue Tape ?1996 Speedball LLC, directed by Kevin Lipton, courtesy of Dan Lipton Entertainment, starring Norris Evans, Petri Pouvé, and Beatrice ‘Bee-Bee’ Evans.

  Though Kevin Lipton was reluctant to hire married co-stars, Speedball had a contract with the couple, five movies for $500,000; so long as Norris kept to the deal, he could sign on full time with Speedball for bigger roles with directors less experimental and more lucrative than Kevin Lipton. Beatrice ‘Bee-Bee’ Evans was heiress to the VanNuys oil fortune, so was not there for the money, but for Norris, a fact that really rubbed Kevin Lipton because Bee-Bee could have funded the film five times, paid Norris, herself, then the critics to put in a good word, but would not, because Hubby wanted to earn his way by skill alone, as if he wasn’t in the studio with Kevin Lipton in the first place due to his social station and a few palmed hundreds from Bee-Bee’s creepily supportive Victor VanNuys father.

  ‘The city is on a moon. The moon orbits a planet long given up to the demons bleeding through. Robots sputter litanies to Christ, “Blessed be the Watcher at the Gates for He will never forsake us. Blessed be the Watcher—”

  ‘A hover car speeds overhead, bleeting its horn, black and white stripes heralding a time passed by, before the demons, before the Black Tongue Tape. All practical effects used in the Black Tongue Tape are below the quality of Star Monarch, filmed two decades before.’

  So goes my best description for the opening of the film, though it degenerates into the non-sequitur, and yes, there is an enormous tower in the middle of the city on the moon.

  It was a science fiction movie. But before the film begins, there is a high, flat-lined whine, a warping in the picture of an American flag waving in the wind on an overcast day (1980’s video quality), and for a brief moment, there flashes the image of a thing with black eyes, thick lips, and tusks coming out of the cheeks, which cannot be caught by pausing the tape. It is impossible. Many a stoner have tried and failed at all-nighter sleepovers, freaking themselves out, playing drinking games where the failed pauser drank every time.

  Then the disclaimer: Do not watch or a presence will invade you and never leave. Then the image of the Buddha on 1980’s blue screen, his fingers doing a kind of rock and roll sign which I later learned was called the ‘Karana Mudra’. And then a mantra replaces the Buddha: Om Namah Shivaay. Then the screen instructs to chant this mantra one-hundred-eight times and you may experience relief. I never did—chant the mantra, that is. After the mantra is when the robots with the Christ litanies start, and my earlier description then follows.

  I won’t go into the rest of Black tongue Tape here. Not now. The moon nears, and I must get to Abby.