Penny Dreadful Read Online Free PDF Page A

tell her I loved her. I was thirteen.
    Chrome:
    He was hungry. Oh, he was violent. He slashed at the air with his long fingers and leaned to breathe obscenities into Mingus’s left ear.
    I want to hunt, he said.
    Mingus glanced at the sky. It’s raining.
    Chrome muttered, not here.
    They sat on a circle of grass overlooking the freeway. Chrome was on edge, he was bored. He began to play with Eve’s telephone, picking up the receiver and saying: Yes, who’s there? He had cut the cord and removed the phone from her apartment on a whim, thinking to confuse and alienate the sickly Phineas, whom he had found distasteful and oddly alluring.
    He looked over at Mingus, who still stared like a simpleton down at the freeway. He was fascinated by cars, the poor thing. His favorite was the Saturn. He claimed it was the most graceful and godlike of machines. Chrome had to smile at this notion. He told Mingus that the Saturn was manufactured in Tennessee by unevolved humans.
    Mingus was ignoring him, though. Which was not wise. Chrome stared at his own fingers. They were twitching and he realized he could easily kill his little friend. It could happen as suddenly as a violent sneeze, a brief involuntary convulsion. It was disturbing, really.
    There’s a green one, said Mingus. They are the prettiest, I think.
    J’ai faim, Chrome said.
    English, said Mingus. Speak English.
    I’m hungry, he said.
    It isn’t safe to hunt by day.
    Please, said Chrome. The Freds come and go.
    Everyone comes and goes.
    But the Freds stay in character.
    As do we, said Mingus.
    Ah, yes. But I am a bit more self-aware, said Chrome.
    Chrome removed a garrote from his boot and twirled it on one finger. The black cord was soft and silky to the touch but strong as piano wire. There was a piece of wood the approximate size of his pinkie at either end, wrapped in leather. He could kill a bear with the thing, if he could only creep up on one.
    You twit, he said. That was a Mustang.
    My eyes are failing in this light.
    How is your nose?
    Fine, said Mingus. I can smell you.
    Do you not smell meat?
    Mingus frowned. A car had drifted to a stop nearby, an ordinary Toyota. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, parked under a little tree. The windows were down and two men sat in the front seat. The angles of their jaws suggested an uneasy discussion of money. Mingus would surely smell sex on them, like salt and fresh earth. Even Chrome could smell it. The sex was coming from them in waves.
    We will not hunt a Citizen, said Mingus.
    Of course not. You will sniff out an unfortunate Fred who has lost his way.
    I walked out of Eve’s place and felt better straightaway. The oxygen had been too thin up there, or too pure. And I had been talking to myself in no time, poking at my eyes with restless fingers. I did find my knife, thank God. It was hidden under a sofa cushion. I had tried and failed to write Eve a note. Thank you for the use of the sofa, the money for food. Thanks for washing my clothes. And I love your new friends…and fuck it. I had crumpled these aborted little notes and tossed them at the window. I would see her later, maybe. It looked like she was running around with a lot of freaks but why the hell should I care. She was hardly a proper little girl before, was she. And she was not a child to be looked after.
    I had my own bellyful of problems, anyway. No money and nowhere to sleep, no job prospects. If I had three red apples, I might wander downtown and amaze the pedestrians with my juggling. I could gather enough spare change to buy a cup of coffee, maybe hang around a diner all day reading other people’s newspapers. I could beg a ballpoint pen off a kindly waitress and use it to mark up the classifieds. A few months ago I had dreamed of a job at a gas station, a video store. I had wanted to change my name and shave my head and write bad poetry.
    Yeah.
    I rolled my eyes at the sky, at a blanket of gray. I didn’t like poetry and I was not a good juggler.