Terminal Island

Chapter Twenty-One

BUFFALO



The town is quiet as ever, drowsing in the mid-afternoon doldrums.

Siesta time, Henry thinks. His back has stiffened up from sitting—he feels like someone has beaten him with a baseball bat, but tells himself it’s nothing compared to those first months of rehab. Barely able to get down the porch stairs, he considers calling it off, but that would just mean climbing back up again and worrying Ruby. The Motrin should be kicking in anytime soon.

Moving as quickly as he can, he makes for the waterfront, scanning every side street for movement, for one of those familiar electric trams, picturing the moment as if willing it into being: that blond girl Janet excitedly pointing him out to Moxie as they approach—There’s your daddy! Here he comes! Wave! Wave to daddy!

But there’s no traffic, nothing stirring at all. The town is as empty as he’s ever seen it. It suddenly occurs to him that he can’t remember when he last saw anyone out on the street…it would have to have been yesterday sometime. Since then there has been a drastic dip in the sense of life. Henry just didn’t notice it earlier, obsessed with finding his mother.

He resists the feeling, not daring to believe it, knowing what Ruby would say. It’s a quiet place. But the closer he gets to the center of Avalon, the more obvious it becomes:

The whole town is dead. Not just napping, but deserted in the way of those condos up there, cleaned out and hollow…just like that day. That long-ago day with his mother. The whole place has that same petrified air.

It reminds him of The Pike.

The Pike was a sprawling waterfront amusement park in downtown Long Beach—California’s answer to Coney Island. Once catering to a huge clientele of sailors during World War Two, The Pike (and the whole of downtown) had slowly become decrepit as its customer base dried up, finally shutting down altogether when the fleet left town for good.

During the long summer days when Henry’s mom was off working, he would wander the bleak prospects of the downtown waterfront as if it were his own backyard. The area was a junk-strewn wasteland of condemned buildings, bulldozed fields, and rat-infested stone breakwaters—very much like the vistas of his earliest memories in San Pedro…and thus, strangely comforting.

This was not the glamorous Southern California of popular myth, all movie premieres and white sand beaches. This was the only Southern California Henry knew: acres of spit-blackened sidewalks curing in the sun, with bars and bail-bonds shops like outposts in the wilderness. It was a landscape that was mostly deserted by day, roamed by drunks and derelicts and screaming lunatics by night.

The centerpiece of it all was The Pike. Henry has vague recollections of his mother bringing him there when they lived in San Pedro and the old amusement park was still hanging on by a thread:

The lights and carnival barkers and droning calliope. The Diving Bell. The swooping double-decker Ferris Wheel. The Penny Arcade. The Fun House, with its cracked plaster clowns above the entrance, shrieking recorded laughter (and which, just before the park was demolished, would yield up a mummified human corpse painted Day-Glo orange—the propped-up ghoul passed off all those years as another dummy). All that was still there when Henry’s mom had first brought him to The Pike. But when he went back there by himself the only sound was the wind riffling strings of tattered plastic pennants. While his mother worked, seven-year-old Henry walked the desolate carnival grounds, alone but not lonely, examining the frozen machinery of the Wild Mouse and the Tilt-a-Whirl, peering into the Try Your Luck stands now gutted of balls and bottles and cheap stuffed animals, and thinking that the place was beautiful—it seemed to exist for its own sake, needless of people, as old and crustily organic as anything in nature.

Yes, Henry thinks now, Avalon is just like The Pike.

Every hot-dog stand and game arcade is closed, every door locked as if it’s Christmas in September—even the Sheriff’s Office and Fire Station. But there is no holiday that Henry is aware of; it should be an ordinary weekday, a school and work day. Yet the windows stare blankly back at him, dark and unoccupied. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

He glances behind and his heart lurches. Not a creature—

Back down the street, about half a block away, looms a monstrous, humped figure. Just standing there watching him.

Adrenaline running like quicksilver, Henry shades his eyes to see better, to be sure he is seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. No—it’s gotta be a joke…

The weird apparition looks about seven feet tall, top-heavy with a shaggy horned head—a bison’s head—that is suspended on a limbless column of overlapping hides, like raggedy plating. Dangling from its horns are strips of flesh that appear to be flayed human skin. A corona of flies swirls around it in the sun, and there are trickles of rank wetness from its eye sockets and nose—the hair under its jaw is slimy with matted blood. As Henry watches, the freakish being glides forward in its cloak of skins, then turns and vanishes between two buildings.

That’s the thing we saw!

There can be no doubt about it—it is the same apparition he and Ruby encountered in the hills: a disgusting, buffalo-headed man.

“What the hell,” Henry mutters, terrified even though he knows it must be nothing but an a*shole in a costume—or maybe that’s why he’s terrified: Only a crazy person would do something like this. “What the f*ck’s going on?”

Chest ringing like an anvil, he hesitantly backtracks to see where the thing went, finding only a trail of blood. It looks like real blood, leading in smears and drabbles down the alley to the next street. He follows it, meaning to chase the son-of-a-bitch down and have it out with him…but that might be exactly what they want him to do. A trick. A trap. Slowing, Henry sees that the blood trail disappears under the door of an unmarked storefront. The window is draped black; there is no way to see inside.

He knows this place from when he was a kid. It was some kind of market then, a secret little shop that had no sign and didn’t advertise in the tourist literature. For all he knows it may still be. Something about the place clangs against his memory—the dreamy recollection of walking by with Christy and seeing a huge green dragonfly trapped inside the window.

What did he glimpse in there? Something that he didn’t understand, that he barely registered except as a place he didn’t belong. He hasn’t thought of this since it happened; it is filed deep with all the other imponderables of childhood. But something bad.

Henry turns around and starts running.

Going as fast as his aching joints will permit, he trots through the middle of town, what would normally be the busiest part, searching for signs of life. He goes past the pizza and ice cream places, the little indoor shopping center, the Post Office. The windows are decorated in a way they never were before, with oddly composed still-lifes of fruit and raw meat and other more random items of plenty set out like offerings, with paper money strung up like bunting.

Everywhere he goes he begins to notice fresh-painted graffiti, the same symbol over and over: a buffalo’s horned head, weeping blood—the stylized face looks half human. Henry scans the beach and the pier. Nothing. He tries to enter the lobby of Arbuthnot’s hotel, the expensive Sand Crab Inn, and finds it dark, the glass entrance sealed.

“Hello?” He jumps the fence into the hotel courtyard and walks down the line of doors, his voice echoing against the building. “I’m looking for a Carol Arbuthnot! Mr. Arbuthnot! Can someone hear me? I have an emergency!”

There is no response, and Henry is about ready to despair when out of nowhere a thick, grumpy voice calls, “The hell’s your problem?”

It is Arbuthnot himself, up on the second floor. He looks like he’s been napping, dressed only in a shorts and a t-shirt. The unexpected sight of that brutal mug is as welcome to Henry right now as the appearance of a Christmas angel.

“Mr. Arbuthnot! I’m sorry to bother you, but I need your help—it’s important.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name’s Henry Cadmus—I overheard you the other day talking about some missing persons that you were checking into? Well, I’ve found out what it’s all about.”

Yawning and rubbing his eyes, the big man says, “Oh really? Well you better come on up, I guess, or I’ll never get any sleep.”

Once Henry is in the room with him, Arbuthnot holds off hearing the story to take some aspirin and go to the bathroom. “F*cking jet lag,” he grumbles apologetically. The room is a mess, with liquor bottles and take-out boxes and paperwork laid out on every available surface. It smells stale. After a moment Arbuthnot comes back out and starts putting on his pants.

Unable to wait another second, Henry blurts, “Mr. Arbuthnot, my daughter is missing, and I think she may have been kidnapped.”

“Do you know you smell like gasoline?”

“Yes. That’s all part of it. Earlier today I was almost killed trying to find my mother up at that Shady Acres place, and now I believe they’ve got my daughter, too. They’re following me! The whole town is in on it!”

Nodding thoughtfully, Arbuthnot circles behind Henry to get a shirt off the hanger. “Shady Isle, you mean. I see…”

All at once there is a gun pressed to Henry’s skull.

“Cut out the bullshit,” Arbuthnot says in his ear. “Who are you working for?”

Dry-mouthed, Henry says, “Nobody. I’m here for the same reason you are.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m looking for answers.”

“Start making sense, a*shole.”

“A few months ago my mother came to this island and disappeared. I traced her to that Shady Isle, but she’s not there—no one is. The whole place is just a front for a gigantic identity-theft mill. They take people’s identities and make them disappear.” He recounts everything that happened, everything he failed to tell Ruby. “I know it sounds insane, but I was just up there and saw the whole thing! They’ve got it going like a regular assembly-line.”

“That’s bullshit. I’ve been up there and interviewed some of the residents. It all checks out.”

“How did you manage to go in? By appointment?”

“Yes.”

“Then they put on a dog and pony show for you. That’s how it works!”

“And how did you get in?”

“I climbed up the hillside and went under the fence. It was pure luck. But they almost caught me—I barely got out with my life.”

The pressure of the gun lessens as Arbuthnot expertly pats Henry down with his free hand, scrutinizing his I.D. When he’s finished, he lowers the revolver and steps back. “Do they know who you are?” he asks.

“I’m not sure, but I’ve been to the police.”

“What did they do?”

“Nothing.”

“Then they know.”

Sensing that Arbuthnot is way ahead of him, Henry asks, “What the hell is happening on this island? How can they get away with this?”

Finishing getting dressed, Arbuthnot says, “It’s bigger than just this island. This is the tip of the iceberg. I’ve barely scratched the surface, but there are links to dozens of countries. It’s very well financed and politically connected.”

“What is it?”

“I’m still figuring that out.” Knotting his tie, he says, “A few people from the Treasury Department, the Secret Service, the FTC, the SEC, and the Social Security Administration have been running an unofficial investigation that is about to go official—big time. They’ve been working independently to blow the lid off this thing, because nobody else will look at it. It’s career suicide. That’s why they had to bring me in, a ringer, because nobody else wants the grief.”

“I still don’t understand what’s so—”

“It’s basically a religious cult that’s using modern technology to stage a comeback. But it’s a cuckoo’s egg—it camouflages itself in the trappings of fundamentalist Christianity, which makes it a political hot potato.”

“I’ve heard something about a Satanic cult. And animal sacrifices.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

Arbuthnot zips opens a shaving case and pulls out an object wrapped in cloth. Handing it over, he says, “Say hello to Zagreus.”

Henry unfolds the napkin and finds a statue of a child—a young boy. The figure’s oversized head has two nubs like budding horns. It is carved from ivory, about eight inches long, and has a certain phallic contour.

“Wait a second…” Henry says.

“What?”

“I’ve seen this thing before. What is it?”

“That’s Zagreus—the Horned Child.”

“So it is the devil?”

“Not quite. Not unless you believe that Jesus Christ was cribbing from the devil.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lot of Christian concepts are borrowed directly from Zagreus: Immaculate conception, the whole water-into-wine thing, the martyrdom and resurrection. Eternal life for those who eat his body and drink his blood. Yet Zagreus predates Christ by five to ten thousand years. At one time, Zagreus-worship spread like wildfire all over Europe and Asia Minor, toppling the major religions of its day.”

“I’ve never heard of it before.”

“You’ve heard of Dionysus, haven’t you? Or Bacchus? It’s all the same god. Zagreus is just the kiddie version, like the baby Jesus.”

“But the horns…”

“Horns didn’t originally have sinister connotations—God himself could be a bull or a ram. Those horns were just signifiers that Zagreus was the authentic Lamb of God. The concept of a horned devil was invented by early Jews and perpetuated by Christians to discredit Zagreus so they could steal his customer base—like Pepsi versus Coke.”

“What does that have to do with what’s happening here?”

“Zagreus is alive. Here. Today. His believers use various forms of Christianity as a cover for their real purpose, which is massive financial fraud, racketeering, political corruption, you name it, all for the big Z. Anytime someone starts preaching the ‘prosperity gospel’ or wants to kill in the name of Jesus, that’s a clue that Zaggers might be pulling the strings. They are especially active in the movement known as Dominionism, which holds that wealth is proof of God’s favor, and anyone who’s not born rich can go suck it. Their goal is to repeal the Constitution and replace it with God’s Law—which of course would include bringing back slavery and killing all witches, queers, and disobedient children. It’s bananas.”

“But isn’t some of that right out of the Bible?”

“Yes, but remember that the original language of the Bible was Greek. It’s from the apostles, some of whom may have been initiates to the Greater Mysteries of Eleusis—the church of Zagreus. Christ himself was at least influenced by the liturgy of Eleusis, and perhaps more. In fact, these people think of Jesus as a usurper—a priest of Zagreus who wanted to be God. The original identity thief.”

“But how could such a thing still be happening?”

“It’s probably always been around, lurking in isolated pockets around the world. This island was one of them—rumor has it that Zagreus-worship came over with one of the Black Hand societies during Prohibition, when this island was a major staging area for bootleggers. Reconstituted, doped wine was manufactured here in huge amounts. But the Internet has caused a revival.”

“I just don’t—how is it possible to keep such a thing secret?”

“Because they all have a stake in it—it’s the golden goose. Also the drugs help.”

“Drugs?”

“Hell yes. None of this would be possible without the sacrament: the so-called ‘ambrosia’ they brew from either amanita muscaria or datura stramonium—Angel’s Trumpet. Zagreus is the god of wine, and they take that shit seriously. Amanita is a poison mushroom and datura is a flower, a powerful alkaloid with effects similar to PCP. There was one particular incident where it may even have gotten into the town reservoir when federal agents broke up some stills—the whole incident was covered up, but half the people on this island probably got permanent brain damage from drinking that crap. To this day they guzzle it nonstop during their festivals.” Arbuthnot stares pointedly at Henry as he says, “It’s how they achieve the state of religious ecstasy that permits them to do…what they do.”

Henry doesn’t flinch—this comes as no surprise to him. “Murder,” he says.

The investigator nods, donning his coat. “Human sacrifice. It’s the ultimate initiation—once someone has done that, they are committed to the faith in a way that no ordinary baptism can compete with. It’s what mobsters do to ensure ultimate loyalty. But these folks have added their own twist to it.”

“What’s that?”

“They think they’re doing their victims a favor, saving their souls by turning them into permanent subscribers. The people they kill are not human beings but pharmakoi—healing agents delivered by God. And there’s an added incentive: Each killing represents a fresh income stream—literally manna from heaven.”

“Unbelievable…”

“Yeah. And this is just the beginning, a template for what’s to come. This island is a testing ground for a Second Coming, ground zero for a church that thinks the meek are cattle and that the spoils belong to the victor. They’re engaged in a campaign to break down the culture and hijack all this disposable wealth that has cluttered the society with too many judges, too many lawyers, too many petty obstacles to the exercise of raw power. They mean to reduce the population to a superstitious, impoverished rabble that will be properly in awe of their greatness…or be swatted like flies. Only then will they openly speak the name of Zagreus. And the public sacrifices will commence.”

The investigator suddenly shakes his boulder-like head with wry disbelief. “Needless to say, I haven’t slept properly in years. But I’ll tell you what: if what you’re telling me is true, we’re about to bust this cocksucker wide open.”

Overwhelmed, Henry gathers his wits and says, “That’s terrific, but…right now I really just need you to help me find my daughter. Please—I’m going out of my mind.”

“Certainly, certainly. I’ll tell you what: I have a couple of inside connections here who may be able to tell me something. With just the information you’ve given me I should have considerably more leverage. I’ll go over right now.”

“That’s fantastic,” Henry says, dissolving in gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. You’re doing me a favor.” He puts his coat on. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll have to ask you to wait for me. These people won’t talk if they think someone’s listening in.”

“Okay,” Henry says. “I won’t budge.”

“Well, actually I can’t leave you in here with all this stuff. This is kind of my office, you understand. I don’t even let the maid in here. Where are you staying?”

“At the Formosa. Room 318.”

“Good, why don’t you go back there and wait for me? I’ll call as soon as I know something.”

Henry can’t imagine facing Ruby empty-handed. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d rather just wait outside here.”

Sensing Henry’s desperation, Arbuthnot says, “Sure, whatever. Tell you what: Why don’t you wait on the plaza for me? It’s a more public place. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“I’m not sure it’s safe out there.”

“Why not?”

Unsure of how to put it, Henry says, “There was a nut in a costume before.”

“What kind of costume? What did he do?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, really. It just kind of…worried me, with the rest of the town so empty.”

“It’s probably nothing—I wouldn’t think about it right now. Let’s focus on finding your daughter.”

“Okay…”

Out on the sidewalk, Arbuthnot says, “I have to go this way. Hang in there—we’re gonna nail these bastards, you’ll see.” He rests his big paw on Henry’s shoulder, then turns away and disappears around a corner.

Drained and hurting, suddenly feeling like his body weighs a ton, Henry goes half a block to the town plaza. Arriving there, he rests on a bench facing the drugstore.

Birdman of Alcatraz…the vivid memory of feeding pigeons with his mother here almost brings him to tears. Suddenly he sees it all as through a cracked lens, a crystal ball that captures the whole dynamic of the situation: himself and his missing mother and daughter in a three-generation cycle of futility…with him at the center, being simultaneously torn in both directions, toward the future and the past. Being ripped in two.

But why? Why is this happening?

Hearing a baby crying, Henry’s mind contracts back to the size of the present, his eyes drawn to a pleasant and perfectly ordinary sight—and thus a profoundly welcome one.

Coming down the street are two women pushing a baby carriage. They are a couple of blocks away, idling along as if simply out enjoying a lazy fall afternoon. As if nothing odd could possibly intrude on their world. Henry walks over, self-consciously trying to appear normal himself so as not to alarm them.

The carriage is a big, Victorian-style pram. It is not only old-fashioned but old, its undercarriage rust-stained and rickety. He feels like he has seen it someplace before.

A bad feeling wells up out of Henry’s guts.

This is immediately followed by a second feeling—the urgent need to see who it is crying in that basket. The muffled wails are high and frantic, and the women aren’t doing much about it.

Approaching them, Henry says, “Good afternoon. Can I speak to you ladies?”

The women don’t acknowledge the question. They are middle-aged matrons, one frumpy, dark, and heavy-set; the other tall and slender, with long white hands—her face is obscured by a veiled sun hat. The swarthy one stares at him with a look of grinning contempt.

“Your baby sounds upset,” Henry says. Without asking, he cautiously tips up the canopy of the stroller. There is something moving under the blanket—large enough to be a toddler.

“Moxie?” he says, voice trembling. “Moxie-boo?”

Heart palpitating, he leans in, pulling aside the cover.

Oh shit…

Underneath is the skinned carcass of a lamb. But it is not dead. It is bleating in agony, its eyes rolling wildly in its naked, bloody skull.

Henry can hardly believe what he is seeing—his brain skips like a bad CD: Angel’s Trumpet, Angel’s Trumpet…

Suddenly losing it, he shouts, “Jesus Christ!” and jerks upright in horrified rage. It is this abrupt motion that likely saves his life, for a sharp blade suddenly cleaves the air where his throat had been.

Wha—?

There is a dog-faced woman coming at him—the tall, thin woman. She has shed her veil and is wearing a black mask that looks like an actual dog’s dried-and-cured face, frozen in ravenous attack, with long blond hair spilling out the back. She is snarling and swinging a machete.

“Whoa,” Henry cries, lunging backward. “Get away from me!”

The blade catches him a glancing blow on the shoulder. What is this? Trick or Treat? Now the other woman is coming at him with a steel-toothed mallet—an abalone hammer—squealing in delight.

“Stop it, stop!” Henry shouts. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Surrounded, Henry grabs the stroller and swings the whole thing around, crashing it into both women and knocking them back. The lamb falls out onto the ground, screaming. Furious, Henry leaps on the dog-woman, wresting her machete away and chopping the lamb’s head off.

“What the hell’s the matter with you people!” he shouts, flinging the sword into some hedges. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he intends to find his daughter no matter what.

The abalone hammer whacks him behind the knee, and instantly Henry is in a battle for his life. As he goes down, the dog-woman comes up, all ferret-quick sinew, pulling out a tremendous knife and lunging forward to plant it in his guts.

Using every bit of his rusty hand-to-hand skills, Henry manages to fend off the blade, getting kicked in the balls instead. And now the other woman is on him again, too. They’re both strong and fanatically determined—insanely determined.

“Stop,” he grunts in pain. “Stop or I’ll have to hurt you.”

Tiring, trying to avoid being simultaneously clubbed and stabbed, Henry realizes he has to get out of there. In frustration he elbows the hammer woman in the stomach and punches the dog-woman in the face, knocking her mask off.

It is Lisa.

She grins madly at him through bloodied teeth, laughing through her snarls. Henry slaps her, shouting, “Stop it! Stop that!” and is oblivious at first to the other figures emerging from buildings—other people running out with glinting weapons of their own to block his escape.

What alerts him is the sound of childish giggles and mocking animal sounds. In continuation of the day’s nightmare absurdities, some of the newcomers are wearing hooded sweatshirts and baggy pants along with the hairy faces of goats or wild boars, giving them the look of funky urban animals. It would be funny if it wasn’t becoming so dire. By the time Henry realizes the trouble he’s in, it’s almost too late.

“Come on,” he moans.

He breaks clear, running for all he’s worth. Unsure of what he’s going to do, he heads the only way still possible: down towards shore. Two goat-boys with twisting horns converge in his path, one wielding a long pike and the other a nail-studded wooden club. On the fly, Henry grabs the first by his weapon and brutally swings him into the second, knocking them both down as he charges past. He keeps the pike.

Emerging at the beach, he can see that he is trapped, surrounded, and goes the only way he can: out onto the pier. Maybe steal a boat!—no, he already knows that all the rentals are in storage, stacked like cups for the season. All right then, he’s a good swimmer; without any other prayer of escape his intention is to leap off the end of the pier and try to swim away, perhaps make it to the nearer cape faster than they can get there on foot. Then run for the hills.

But as he passes the rental concession, Henry sees that even this slim possibility is out:

A horrific and ludicrous vision appears from behind the snack bar, blocking his path—it is an enormously fat man in shorts and flip-flops, built like a sumo wrestler and tattooed from head to foot in skeins of black ivy, his hands gripping a sledgehammer. But what truly checks Henry in his tracks is the man’s wraparound mirrored sun-visor, which gives him the look of having a single long, Cyclopean eye.

No…f*cking…way.

Henry charges, lowering the pike at the man’s belly like a bayonet—it’s a big target. But as he homes in, the giant easily swats the harpoon aside and almost takes off Henry’s head with the sledgehammer. Thrown off balance, Henry slams into the ogre’s legs as if into a tree trunk, rebounding on his ass. Dazed, he looks up to see the huge hammer being raised high for a final killing blow.

All at once, a long-handled boat hook swings into the picture. Its gleaming curved end plants itself in the giant’s neck and he screams, dropping the hammer to clutch at it. Like a bad vaudeville performer being yanked offstage, the monstrous figure is abruptly jerked off his feet, squealing like a pig as he is twisted around and shoved face-first into the deck.

Carol Arbuthnot is holding the gaff.

“How do you like that?” he says, slamming the man’s bloody head into the steel base of the marlin crane. “You say you like it?” He loops a cable around the man’s ankles and hits the button of the electric hoist, leaving it running to slowly raise the massive body upside-down.

“Don’t,” the bloodied hulk pleads, belly dangling. “Don’t…”

“Don’t kill him,” Henry says, getting up. He has never been so happy to see anyone in his life.

“Is that all you can say? Just get in the Zodiac.” Arbuthnot gestures at an inflatable boat tied below.

He has a point; the animal-people are coming fast, way too many of them. Henry descends, clambering into the motorboat as Arbuthnot fires a warning shot in the air, then follows him down. The boat wheezes under Arbuthnot’s weight. As Henry casts off, the detective yanks the starter cord. It chugs and dies.

“Try again,” Henry says.

“Oh, really?” Arbuthnot tugs again and the engine putters to life. In a second they are pulling away, watching people line up against the pier railing to look down at them through the eyes of dead animals.

Henry can feel the cold force of their stares. Against his will he shudders: There is something so wrong, so malignant about this—it’s a whole culture, going on generation after generation. It’s a disease. Look at them up there: no anger or jeering, just silent contentment to wait, as if the waiting is decreed, an inextricable part of the game.

“I thought you told me not to worry,” Henry says.

“Well, I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“I had to be sure you weren’t one of them.”

“Jesus.”