Penny Dreadful Read Free Page A

chest and not blinking. Trying to be cool, I suppose. As if I woke up on a strange couch with mutants staring at me every day. I wanted a cup of coffee. I wanted these two freaks to give me a little space.
    I rubbed at a sore mosquito bite on my left wrist, aware now that my knife was missing. I told myself to wake the fuck up.
    The unsmiling pretty face wavered before me, became solid again. A body formed behind it. A black, sleeveless shirt that appeared to be made of soft metal. Hairless, muscular arms with a few unreadable words tattooed on the pale, smooth underside of one bicep. Black pants held together by patches of rubber and electrician’s tape and boots stained with mud. The man’s hair was black and short and very soft, like the fur of a young black dog. The man was eerily calm and not exactly hostile. He was unpleasantly seductive, though. I guessed him to be about thirty years old. There was a fine web of wrinkles around his blue eyes. And those eyes were now staring obliquely at my chest, my exposed belly.
    That is exquisite work, the face said.
    What?
    The scar, he said. Where did you have it done?
    I blinked stupidly at him, smiled. It isn’t meant to be ornamental, I said.
    How did it happen?
    On a lumber crew in Oregon. I stumbled into a tree pulper.
    Ah, said the face. The wrath of Pan.
    Excuse me. Who are you?
    The face sighed. The wrong question, isn’t it?
    The man-boy began to whisper. A string of curses, or prayers. It sounded like Latin, maybe. One dead tongue or another. What the fuck. They wanted to spook me.
    But how did it really happen? said the face.
    You wouldn’t believe me.
    Try me, said the face.
    I had an organ stolen, I said. And felt a slight flush. The story embarrassed me, somehow.
    The face nodded sagely. Leggers, he said. Happens all the time.
    I frowned. This was not the reaction I was used to. Most people looked at me with a peculiar mix of disbelief, horror and amusement. Nausea, basically. One woman actually hit me in the face when I told her about it.
    Again, I said. Who are you guys?
    I am rather more interested in who you might be, said the face.
    Okay. I’m Phineas. A friend of Eve’s.
    Eve, said the face. I’m sure you mean Goo.
    I opened my mouth, then closed it. Yes, I said.
    I am Chrome, said the face.
    The man-boy still whispered.
    How do you know Eve? I said. Or Goo, that is.
    I am her paramour.
    Okay. I stood up and walked into the kitchen. I was suddenly very thirsty, and wondered how long I had been sleeping. I was shivering a little, claustrophobic. I didn’t think I liked my new friends. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to. Eve didn’t want me here, maybe. And why would she? I barely knew her at all. The last time I saw her, she had just been raped with an assortment of household objects. By someone who was looking for me. She had probably hoped she would never lay eyes on my sorry ass again. Then I showed up on her porch, homeless and unannounced. And after I passed out on her couch she naturally sent these two along to give me a fright.
    I opened the refrigerator and peered at its uncertain contents. A few unmarked items wrapped in brown paper. Meat, possibly. But Eve was a vegetarian, or so I thought. She was also a lesbian, the last time I saw her. Now she seemed to have a creepy Goth boyfriend with sharp yellow fingernails. His name was Chrome, for fuck’s sake. The paramour. I licked my lips and reached for a jar in the fridge that appeared to contain water. And what the hell did I know. Maybe she was bisexual. Who wasn’t a little bisexual at the end of the day, alone with the black fingers of memory and silence? The heart was a frail but curiously stubborn organ. I knew that much. This Chrome person, though. He was a nasty one. And not just dark and dreary. He was a skinny wolf lounging in the sun. The guy was for real. I sniffed at the water and my nostrils burned. It was not fucking water, okay. I leaned over the sink and took a long drink from the