Girl, Georgie...and Archie

Georgie stared out the window but in her zoned-out state she was as blind as a person born with no corneas. The lights in the cavernous subway fuselage flickered and dimmed, alarming her from her reverie, for the light was an odd reddish amber, much like the embers in a dying fire.

She had been drawn to the subway. It seemed more comforting than the cold, agoraphobic, openness of the streets.

She blinked as she took in her reflection. Her skin so pale, her face was a moon, and her brown eyes huge and darkly shadowed. She was horrified to see herself with the face of a skeleton. It was a very bad omen.

Fresh tears shimmered and the reflection wavered like a mirage on a mid-day August Texas highway. She ran her fingers through her pale gold boy’s cut hair. The fingers were skeletal in the grim reflection; she tried to recapture the image of her true self- a natural, effortlessly pretty girl.

She’d been born twelve years earlier and christened Amanda-Lynn, named for a grandmother she didn’t remember and therefore felt no guilt for choosing to call herself Georgie instead, after her idol, George Lucas, whom she wanted to be like when she grew up. She pulled her hood up and down over her brows and slumped in the hard plastic seat and again glanced at the boy she pretended to be.

Georgie didn’t wear dresses or make-up or pink fuzzy hair scrunchies. She pretended to be a boy simply because she felt safer. Once, a little girl of about eight or nine squealed with delight and ran to her from across the grassy expanse of a pocket park only to be disappointed that Georgie was not Justin Timberlake.

She’d gradually made the metamorphosis during the six months after her older sister, Carolina-Joy, disappeared. The detectives surmised a sexual predator recently released in a Toronto suburb was the culprit. The scrap of bloody lace found on the subway platform at the King Street Station contained both Carolina-Joy’s and the sick bastard’s DNA, though neither person was ever seen or heard from again.

She had figured that her mother would be less likely to notice if she made the transformation a little bit at a time. But then again, perhaps her mother would be just as likely to notice purple tentacles complete with neon green suction cups growing out from Georgie’s ears.

It wasn’t just the booze, though Georgie knew that good ole Jack Daniels had been the catalyst that led like a steppingstone path through an increasingly darkening forest down into the comatose state she sort-of existed in these days. The men that Florence brought home like stray dogs grew grosser and grosser. She went for the ruggedly handsome, often bearded…lumberjack types oozing with testosterone. While Carolina-Joy had been alive, the boyfriends were mostly decent types who happened to enjoy partying and booze fests as much as her mother, though the true binging mostly occurred on the weekends.

After the disappearance, Florence fell ill.

Georgie had cared for her as best as she could, bringing her Chunky Campbell’s soup, freshly laundered pajamas and sweats, and new copies of The Enquirer and The Star. Only the latter seemed touched. The jammies lay at the foot of the bed, the soup congealed, and the wastebasket filled with soggy tissues and pint bottles of cheap bourbon. The old MGM Las Vegas ashtray overflowed with butts.

When she eventually crawled out from her stale and reeking sheets, Florence headed for the The Stag’s Gait, the stompin’ ground for the gents who worked the paper mill on that side of town. Florence’s taste had gone downhill, it was only natural considering her appearance had too. The third one she’d brought home was worse than just drunk. He smelled rancid, like old skid-marked underpants left too long in a damp place. ‘Could she mother not smell him? Couldn’t she see the glazed look on his sweaty face?’  Her mother developed the same zombie-glaze three days later when they at last re-emerged from the den of despair.

Georgie had been in the kitchen washing the dishes. There were very few these days, the adults in the house didn’t eat much. The guy, Santiago was his name -though he didn’t look Hispanic to Georgie- had thick silver hair from a receding hairline, a pale, lined face grizzled with salt ‘n’ pepper stubble, and watery, pale grey eyes entrenched in drooping bags. The eyes brightened, in not a good way, when he swayed into the kitchen and realized a young girl was there before him.

It was as though Florence had never mentioned she had a daughter. His shiny-wet lips turned upwards into a leer as he eyed her up and down, his eyes lingering on her flat chest as if trying to figure how old she was. His eyes morphed into the calculating wheels of a Vegas one-armed bandit as he lurched towards her. He raised a veiny pale hand towards her, the fingernails packed with dark crud. Georgie stepped back quickly, like a wary fawn from a fat white snake, and saw small purple bruises in the crook, a couple looked fresh, one appeared to be bleeding like an infected mosquito bite scratched too long and hard.

She threw the Tupperware container she’d been washing into the sink, throwing a wave of soap bubbles onto the windowsill and scootched under the arm and out the door.

Ick. She shuddered at the memory.

And her rite of passage had begun. Florence only commented on her daughter’s appearance once, her raspy cigarette-addled voice- a voice suited to a woman 20 years older, “Whas wi’ the hair? You look like-a dyke.”

Georgie didn’t know what a dyke was besides a dam or something in Holland, so she Googled. Hmf. The desire to be a boy then and there was set in hardening cement. Within the next month, she wore only jeans, tees, and hoodies. She considered wearing a little aftershave cologne she’d pilfered from a ‘boyfriend’ but that would be weird.

She noticed right away the difference in the attention she got from the men. Or, rather, the lack of attention. She was miserably depressed and angry, but she no longer felt as helpless as she had months before. God forbid her mother bring home a junkie-alky who liked little boys.

The train slowed, pulling into the next station. Shapes formed from the deep shadows and charcoal grey concrete that was growing paler as the station lights materialized ahead. The train stopped; the annoying glaring lights inside the car came on, buzzing like fat houseflies caught between two windowpanes. Just outside her window was an indent in the wall, an outlet for maintenance crew- it was a rectangle-shaped black hole.

There was a figure there, facing the wall. Just the silhouette of a scarecrow, like a snowman made from bags of coal. As if it felt her looking, the figure turned around.

His face was dark, dirty, bearded…but the whites of his eyes glowed with the yellowy amber light. He was staring straight at her. His black lips were moving as if he was speaking to her.

Panic rose like bile deep in her esophagus. She blinked and looked around to see if anyone else was as curious about the man as she was. None of the three others were looking up from their laps. When she looked back, the man was gone. Had he really been there at all? Or had she manifested the image from her own introspections of her mother’s chosen company?

The lights went out. A few seconds later, they came back but at half strength and amber tinted.

“Please be calm everyone.” She jumped at the sudden voice; she’d forgotten the speaker was just above her head. “We will be moving shortly towards the next station. There you will disembark.” The otherworldly voice was deep and reassuring, though somewhat crackled by the old metal speaker face. “There’s been an accident in the tunnel about a mile ahead. You all need to disembark here. We will be forced to shut down until it is safe to continue travel through this section. Sorry for the inconvenience…be safe.”

Georgie had been in her own world. The world of her Lucasonian brain. She recalled how late it had been when she’d left home with the maybe intention of never going back. Just, you know, going…ha, into a new galaxy far far away…she glanced down at her watch, the old Seiko she’d “found” on the coffee table one morning on her way out the door for school. Five minutes to two AM. Great.

She looked around the underground train car. She was alone. She prayed the deep reassuring voice would come again. It did not. The train door slid open with a whoosh and a puff of steamy petrol and urine infused air.

Georgie grabbed her backpack and stepped onto the platform. A policeman was escorting an elderly man towards the exit stairs to the world above. She wanted to follow just to be near safe-looking people but where would she go up there? Home? Ugh. Voices caught her ear, and the high-pitched laughter of cruel boys. She turned in time to see two older teenaged boys disappear around a thick cement pilon; their strutty body language suggested they were up to no good. She heard a growl and realized it was a human voice but could not decipher any words.

She loped as silently as she could, like Sylvester tiptoeing after Tweetie bird. “I taught I swaw a puddy-tat.” Only she felt she was the tiny yellow canary foolishly stalking a very mean and perhaps rabid were-cat. She almost giggled but as she came upon the pilon and snugged up against it, she heard gurgling, garbling, guttural sounds…then a sound that was definitely laughter. Not the young laughter she expected from the two hoodlums, but chortling from the deepest pit in hell. She dared a peek around the pilon.

The dim corridor there in the subway tunnel by the restrooms was crimson…and wet.

At first, she thought the boys had been graffitiing. But that illusion was dashed when she saw the bodies. Or what was left of them. It was the lower leg in the Dayton boot with the white gleam of bone glowing from the blackened maroon mess of the rest of the body that made Georgie freeze. The blood in her veins slushy ice. The second body was a teenaged boy-shaped lump, equally red and wet and broken.

A homeless man with a gnarly twisted walking stick stood over the remains. As she watched, a second vagrant slunk from the shadows of the tunnel, his lips were moving and as he drew closer to his vagrant buddy the words became audible, “Pokemon…pokemon. Poke…ah…man. Pokemon…”

Vagrant One had with the stick had been the one she’d locked eyes with. She felt it in her wintery marrow.

Georgie thought, ‘Pokemon? This is soooo weird. How do they even know…?’

Both men were in ragged clothes. Black, grey, grimy. They appeared sooty like mine workers. Even from her hiding spot twenty feet away, she could smell them. The first looked towards his decrepit buddy, the second man nodded enthusiastically, and growled, “Pokemon! Pokemon!”

Vagrant One grinned and bent…and poked the bloody lump with his walking stick. Nothing moved and both men howled like wolves with glee. They went to the second grisly mass, and both cried out, “Pokemon! Pokemon!”

Vagrant TWO pulled a crooked black umbrella from his dark ragged coat and poked at the body.

“Pew pew pew!” said the other…just like a Star Wars spoof of the ray guns. Any second she expected to hear the “whhhhizzzzzzt” of a light saber.

She ran out into the subway station and headed for the stairs.

Dark shadows were gathered on the landing and seemed to be coming down. Great hulking forms that seemed like men. Then she heard the mutterings. Garbled, from mush-mouths…”Pokemon…Poke the Mon…ha ha haha ha!”

She raced into the tunnel.

Georgie was discombobulated from the surrealness she felt at discovering the boys antagonizing a homeless man, having that man somehow not only kill them but tear them to shreds. ‘This can’t be real. I’m in my own movie in my bed…’ but she knew.

After ten minutes she realized she had not gone back but had continued on into the tunnel towards the next station. It wasn’t quite pitch black but close, just as darkness threatened to take over, those dim amber lights glowed from ahead. Must be the next station. The one where the accident had stopped service on this route. Ahead of her the tunnel curved and she could see the walls and platform of the station.

There were two corpses in uniforms, four people, and a body in a bag. Not a single living person, just definitely dead ones. She ducked behind a trash collecting vehicle, it was orange and on its flatbed was a collection of stinky bins. As her eyes took in the niches in the tunnel walls across from the platform, she watched as shadows took the shapes of men. Vagrant One came into the light first.

They shuffled towards the carnage like zombies on parade. Schluff schluff, schluff…”Pokemon!” said Vagrant One. The one behind him said it too. And then more voices added to the strange mantra.

The homeless men pulled out their sticks, umbrellas, one had a long thin ski pole… and began poking the bodies.

She watched, frozen in terror, sick with fascination. She was trying to remember everything. ‘Dang! I should be recording this with my iPhone! It would make a great introduction into the world of G.Lucas.!’Nevermind’- reaching for the device, they might detect her movements. She felt as if she’d been tumbled by waves, like curlers over a surfer.

Vagrant One bent over the cop closest to her, perhaps fifteen feet away, and, as she watched, lowered his grizzled, darkened dirty face to the dead cop’s…and chewed his face off. ”Yung ynug yung.”

The man with the umbrella, Vagrant Two, poked the corpse’s leg. “Poke da man.”

Georgie understood then that they were saying a variant of “Poke the man.” She almost laughed out loud. But no…oh gosh no. This was too insane. She backed around the pilon and heard the decrepit men raise their voices, “Pokemon!”………“Go ga new!” one said. ‘Hmm- have to googlge that one…’

Vagrant One lifted his grimy face and looked where she was hiding after she had …’what? Made a noise?’ She had only screamed inside; she was SURE of it. Vagrant Two looked up as well. He grinned at her. His teeth were full of gore between dark brown stubs more like tombstones than teeth, his face running with blood, slick black in the noxious yellow light.

At that moment, all the vagrants turned to Georgie, their dim eyes like lighthouses coming to life and following the trek of a wayward ship. ‘Uh oh.’

As they all moved towards her, zombie-like; she looked around for an out.

She could have run back into the tunnel…but a huge dark figure to her left she’d mistaken for a dead body suddenly started moving! Georgie was elated. ‘A survivor?’

The huge shadow lumbered into the light… It was an alligator. And, contrary to popular belief, it was fast on the ground.

Vagrant One howled in pure agony as the gator chomped his left leg below the knee. “Crunch.” Bones splintered, blood geysered a thick spray over the concrete, “Splat.” The vagrant went down, and the gator separated his head from his body, the arms still flayling about, flapping like the wings of a chicken with its head cut off.

Georgie heard the shuffling, slapping of feet taking off down the tunnels in both directions. She was flabbergasted and felt close to fainting. The alligator craned its massive lumpy head towards her and grinned like only a gator can- mischievously, as if the joke was on her.

A familiar and reassuring voice spoke, not to her, but to the alligator. “Good job Archie. May she rest in peace now. Oh, this is Georgie by the way.”

The voice of the train conductor.

Georgie turned towards it and there he was…

In a crisp blue uniform with white shirt and pressed trousers. It was an old-school uniform they no longer wore. He was rakishly handsome, with a short, cropped beard. The alligator that was real looked at the ghost, grinning that wonderfully rakishly-evil looking grin.

‘Not cop, but a conductor.’

“Sorry babe, to not be around. I fucked up…no time now to explain, girl, you’re too young to be out here…” The ghost hesitated. “You and I have taken care of Carolina-Joy’s spirit… and she may rest now. Archie and I needed your alive spirit here to lure the evil one out from his hole. You shared the same essence.”

“Dad?”

The conductor ghost nodded. “I can’t stay. Your journey will start when you leave here, You will be safe with Archie by your side until you decide what it is you want to do.” He winked at her, tossed a key, “take the key to my apartment.”

Georgie swayed on her feet, she felt like an 18^th century lady about to faint from a tight corset. She was confused but understood what her father had been saying. She raised a small pale hand towards the alligator as her father’s ghost started disintegrating into the tiny specks you saw on old timey television when the station went off the air.

The alligator came to her hand…and grinned.

Strips of skin and the bits of gore from her sister’s killer adorned the alligator’s teeth.