Impossible Places Read online

  “Thirty years ago I would’ve said it was all a Russian plot, but I think the poor Russians are likewise on the verge of succumbing to the same sort of global gut-busting infiltration.”

  “Right.” She made a production of checking her watch. “Well, you’d better finish up your studies here fast, Professor. We close in thirty minutes.”

  “I need more time than that.”

  “Thirty minutes.” She turned and headed north, in the direction of the checkout registers, and safety.

  Idiots, Moke thought. Blind fools. He was going to save the country, save the world, in spite of its slavish ingrained genuflection to oversweetened dreck. Considering current dietary habits it was a wonder the species continued to survive at all.

  Facts were undeniable. When his paper finally exploded on the world convenience food scene, specialists would rush to confirm his findings. Too late then for the bloated minions of a bilious multibillion-dollar industry to conceal the truth any longer from a hitherto thoroughly duped market-going public.

  Emerging from beneath the concealing pile of un-crushed cartons, he climbed out of the compacter and surveyed the storage room at the rear of the market. It was dark and deserted. Refreshed from his nap, he had a couple of hours before the store reopened. It was all he would need.

  Using his keychain flashlight, he returned to the aisle where he’d had the encounter with the young clerk. Going to save her too, he thought determinedly, before her body was unalterably poisoned. It was his crusade, and his alone. The big health-food groups didn’t have a clue. Or his analytical expertise.

  A few final notes and his research would be complete. Then to the computer, to integrate final thoughts with the rough manuscript. Polish and publish, then sit back to await the coming explosion.

  This was the last store on his list, the final line of the last page of statistics in a study that had taken decades to compile and encompassed more than fifty cities and towns. All visited personally by him. He couldn’t trust graduate students to carry out the fieldwork. They were all contaminated by the very products he was sworn to eradicate from the shelves of the world’s supermarkets. He’d been forced to do all the research on his own.

  It was the same wherever he went. Identical eccentric molecules and weird peptide chains in dozens of products, regardless of brand name. Clever they were, but Moke had stumbled on their secret. Soon he would expose the full nature of their callous perfidy to a shocked public.

  Aisle Six stretched on ahead of him; shelves crammed full of brightly colored air-puffed victuals utterly devoid of nutritional value and inherently antithetical to the digestive system of the human body. They all but glowed behind their glistening, brightly colored wrappings; tantalizingly easy to consume, irresistibly crammed full of false flavor, quisling comestibles capable of rapidly weakening both mental and physical resolve. He knew them for what they were: opiates for the progressively brain-damaged.

  Something quivered slightly on the shelf just behind his left shoulder.

  He whirled, saw nothing. Chuckling uneasily to himself, he sauntered on. And froze.

  They were moving. The packages on the shelves ahead. Twitching slightly, jerking against their containers and restraints. Huge bags of intimidating chips, densely packed containers of vacuum-restrained pretzels, stacks of creme-filled non-cakes. All gyrating and weaving and rustling invitingly. And he could hear the sound now—a low, insinuating moan. The tempting murmur of empty calories, of empires of gluttony built on mountains of salt and plains of refined white sugar.

  “Eat us,” the enticing susurration whispered coaxingingly. “You have deprived yourself for too long, have put yourself outside pleasure for no reason. Devour, and delight in us.”

  He blinked, clapping his hands over his ears. The microcassette recorder slipped from his fingers to strike the unyielding, Hawaiian Punch–stained floor. Its cover popped open and the tape flew out. Pained, he knelt to recover it.

  Something landed on his back.

  Forgetting the recorder, he reached around wildly. Something soft and sticky squished between his fingers. The tactile sensation was oddly sensuous. Terrified, he found himself staring down at a handful of smashed, bloodred lunch-box cherry pie that contained no cherries and no pie. It oozed from between his fingers, the unctuous crimson gunk packing in beneath his fingernails.

  “Eat me,” the glutinous mass urged him. “Suck me up. You’ll like it.”

  With a cry, he rose and flung the fragments of pseudo-pie as far as he could—but some of it stuck to his fingers anyway. Stumbling backward, he crashed into the nearest shelves. Flailing wildly, he brought down on top of himself piles of chips, stacks of Cheetos, heavy lumps of sponge cake and devil’s food cake and white cake and lemon cake differentiated solely by the type of artificial coloring and flavoring they contained.

  They were all over him now, moving, surging lugubriously to and fro; those strange molecules he’d discovered boldly asserting themselves. They wanted, cried out, demanded to be consumed. He struggled beneath their empty weight and tried to scream for help, but the eight-year-olds who could have rescued him were tucked snug in their beds far from the shuttered market.

  Looking down, he saw bags of pretzels and honey-roasted Cornnuts splitting open; their overbaked, over-saturated, oversalted entrails spilling across his chest and legs. He kicked wildly, sending crumbs flying but unable to get to his feet. His arms and chest were slowly disappearing beneath thick cords of plaster-white creme and dark imitation fudge filling.

  His eyes widened as he saw them humping sinuously toward his face; death reduced to spongy sweet bland-ness. They crammed themselves into his mouth, shoving his lips apart, forcing themselves down his throat. He continued to struggle, to fight, but it was useless. They overwhelmed him, relentless and unyielding in their desire to please, to slavishly gratify the basest of human desires.

  The light began to fade from his eyes. He’d been careless, he realized. Unwilling to envision what they were capable of. But who could have imagined? Did even the bioengineers who’d given impetus to such syrupy mutations imagine what the ultimate result of their work might be? He doubted it. Surely the lethal reality he was experiencing exceeded even their capacious greed.

  He was going, going—but at least he wouldn’t die hungry.

  “Gawddamn! What a mess.”

  The officer wrinkled his nose at the sight and its attending smell. Forensics was finishing up, making way for the coroner. Their jobs were relatively straightforward.

  It was the mortician he didn’t envy.

  The coroner’s assistant was writing on a pad. The officer nodded to him. They knew each other well.

  “Kerwin.”

  “Hey, man.” The assistant looked up. “Ever see anything like this before?”

  The cop shook his head. “What do you think happened?”

  The coroner glanced up the aisle. “Off what I’m used to seeing on the street, my first guess is that he swallowed a twelve-gauge shell that went off inside him, but there’s no sign of powder or shell fragments. I’m beginning to think he just overbinged and self-destructed. Gastrointestinally speaking.”

  “The hell you say. Look at him.”

  “I’d rather not. At least, no more than I have to.” The coroner’s reluctance was understandable. Most of what had once reposed in the cavity between the dead man’s sternum and crotch lay scattered across the supermarket floor and shelves, shockingly vivid amidst the frozen, undulating sea of partly digested cakes and cookies, snack foods and fruit chewies.

  “As near as we’ve been able to figure, the guy went on a junk food binge to end all junk food binges. It was like he couldn’t control himself. As if he had no resistance to the stuff, no resistance at all. Like the Polynesians who were suddenly exposed to European diseases to which they had no built-up immunity.

  “You know how much air they cram into this junk. Ordinarily it doesn’t give you anything except maybe a little gas now
and then. But he was downing the stuff so fast it must’ve blocked his colon. Then he choked on it, and with no escape valve, as it were, the pent-up gas, well—he just blew up. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

  “You ain’t alone, ol’ buddy. Wonder what made him do it?”

  “Beats me.” The coroner shrugged, finishing his notes. “He’s got all the signs of someone who’s been force-fed, except that he obviously did it to himself. Like a French goose on the pâté line. And I thought I knew every way a person could commit suicide.” He shook his head ruefully. “This is one business where you don’t get a kick out of learning something new.” He put his pen to his lips. “What the hell am I going to list as ‘reason for demise’?”

  The cop looked thoughtful. “If it was up to me I’d put down ‘Accidental’ and leave it at that. It’ll get you off the hook until something better turns up.”

  The assistant coroner looked resigned. Then the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. He scribbled on the pad, showed it to his friend.

  “I can’t turn it in this way, of course. The boss’d have my ass.”

  The officer looked down, smiling in spite of himself.

  CAUSE: Death by Twinkie.

  They shared a chuckle. The coroner pocketed his pad. As he turned to leave he noticed a slightly torn but otherwise undamaged package on the floor. Reaching down, he rescued a couple of orphaned creme-filled cupcakes with garish orange icing, passing one to his friend. With a wink the cop bit deeply into his own.

  The sensation as the thick-cremed, sugar-saturated, calorie-rich crumbly mass slid down his throat was indescribable.

  FITTING TIME

  When I was growing up (again), my mother’s best friend in the neighborhood was a lovely lady named Adrian Anderson. Her husband, Johnny, was a tall, easygoing presence of Scandinavian-derived Minnesotan stock who happened to work in the business of motion pictures. Johnny was a wardrobe master. The walls of his modest den were covered with signed photos from some of the biggest names in Hollywood whom he’d dressed for multiple pictures.

  Among these was one Elvis Presley, noted star of motion pictures and sometime singer. After certain pictures, Johnny was required to dispose of certain no longer needed items of attire. The result was local garage sales of no uncertain significance. As a teenage boy, I was of course above such déclassé bourgeois enterprises and blew past them on my way to the local touch football games with nary a glance.

  One day my mother presented me with a pair of white jeans she had bought at one of Johnny’s sales. She noted that they had been worn by Mr. Presley, and even mentioned the particular picture. I was no fan of Elvis, but the pants were nice, and I wore them until I wore the legs out. Then I cut them off at the knees and used them for beach shorts. Eventually, I threw them away.

  To this day, my wife has never forgiven me for this— nor has any woman who has ever heard the story.

  Rohrbach was in a particularly good mood as he rode the elevator to his office. He was alone except for Spike. No mother actually named her newborn Spike, of course, and his Spike was no different. His real name was Nicholas Spianski, but at six foot six and three hundred and twelve pounds, Spike seemed a much better fit. An ex–semipro tackle, he’d been Rohrbach’s principal bodyguard for six years. Rohrbach had several bodyguards, of whom Spike was the only one who accompanied him everywhere. Rohrbach needed several bodyguards.

  He was publisher and editor-in-chief of the Truth.

  You’ve seen the Truth. It slaps you in the face every time you check out of your local drugstore, or supermarket, or twenty-four-hour convenience store. You’ve probably watched its half-hour syndicated television counterpart that airs between ten and twelve at night. It’s hard to miss, the Truth is.

  LOCH NESS MONSTER Attacks Scottish Schoolbus, Eats Six Children Before Horrified Driver’s Eyes!

  I HAD ELVIS’S LOVE CHILD— And He’s A Serial Killer, Distraught Mom Says!

  Aliens Kidnap Alabama Town— Two Twelve-Year-Old Girls Impregnated by Horrible Extraterrestrial Slugs!

  No, that last one can’t be right. The Truth would never use a word as big as impregnated. But you get the idea.

  As a going commercial concern, the Truth was a roaring success. It made a great deal of money for its stockholders, its employees, and most flagrantly, its devoted editor-in-chief. Rohrbach was quite a happy man. The only people who were not happy about the Truth were the unfortunate targets of his writers’ scurrilous inventions, but there was little they could do about it. If they ignored the paper, it published even more outrageous stories about them, and if they sued and won, the paper got free publicity and several new stories out of the lawsuit. The Truth was a no-win situation for its victims, and a win-win for Rohrbach.

  Life was good, if not fair, he reflected as he sloughed off Spike and entered his private office.

  It had a spacious view of the Florida coast, of palm trees and blue water and surf. Beat the hell out of working for a real paper in New York or Chicago, he reflected as he settled in behind his desk. It was piled high with paper despite the presence of a computer on one side.

  It was not piled so high that he failed to see the man seated in the chair off to his right, next to the concealed wet bar.

  Rohrbach froze. The man was tall but not thin, with blond hair and blue eyes. The publisher had never seen him before. He wore unscuffed shoes instead of sandals, freshly pressed trousers, and somewhat incongruously, a florid Hawaiian shirt. His mien was not threatening, but Rohrbach knew from experience you could never tell. How he had slipped inside the editor didn’t know—but he sure as hell was going to find out. And when he did, some unfortunate was going to pay.

  The publisher’s hand strayed toward the alarm button located just under the lip of the desk—and hesitated. The visitor displayed neither weapons nor hostility. Calm and relaxed, he just sat there staring back at the publisher, a serious but unintimidating expression on his face. If he’d had a gun or something threatening he most likely would have brought it out by now.

  Rohrbach drew his finger back from the alarm and sat back in his chair.

  “How did you get in here?”

  The visitor’s voice was deep and strong, but not threatening. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I only half believe it myself.”

  Rohrbach glowered. Beneath that glower employees and even successful corporate lawyers trembled. “You’ll believe it when I have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

  “I only entered. I didn’t break anything. And you can’t arrest me.”

  “Really?” Rohrbach was intrigued in spite of himself. “Why not, pray tell?”

  “Because I’m not really here, in the really here sense.”

  Oh brother, Rohrbach thought. A nut. Harmless, but a nut. Not even radical enough for a back-page squib. He sighed. His schedule was full and he was wasting time.

  “I see,” he said slowly. “Well, Mr., uh . . .”

  “Johnny,” murmured the visitor. “Johnny Anderson.”

  “Well, Johnny, since you’re here, what can I do for you before I have you thrown out by several large people who you’ll also no doubt claim won’t be able to do anything to you?”

  “Elvis sent me.”

  Rohrbach had to smile. Nothing to start the day like being visited by one of your own headlines. He checked the organizer on his desk. Nothing like starting the day with a good laugh, either, and he had a few minutes left before the morning story conference.

  The guy was living proof of what police and newspaper professionals knew well; the real mental cases didn’t look like Charlie Manson. They were regular, ordinary folk just like you and me. Taxpayers and churchgoers and PTA members. Which was how they escaped detection and incarceration until they did something sufficiently drastic to bring them to the notice of their fellow citizens. Like this Johnny here. At least he was harmless.

  “I see,” Rohrbach said slowly. “Why did he send you? To deliver a message, no dou
bt?”

  The visitor steepled his fingers. “That’s right. See, he’s sick and tired of all these lies you’ve been printing about him ever since he died. You know the kind I’m talking about. ‘Elvis sighted at diner in Rapid City, Iowa.’ ‘Elvis’s adopted teenage daughter goes on rampage at mental hospital.’ ‘Fans steal Elvis’s body, pharmacist reveals Elvis’s secret drug list.’ Stuff like that. He wants it to stop. He wants you to stop.”

  “Sure. Uh-huh.” Rohrbach fought to repress a grin. “Um, tell me something, Johnny. If the King is so upset, why didn’t he come tell me about it himself?”

  The visitor shifted in the chair. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I don’t really understand it all myself. Something to do with a gig. So he asked me to help him out.” The visitor smiled. “We spent a lot of time together.”

  “Oh, right. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.” Rohrbach rose. “Well listen, Johnny, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got quite a day ahead of me.” The visitor nodded and stood. “I really want to thank you for bringing this to my attention, and I promise you I’ll get right on it.”

  The visitor smiled softly. He certainly was harmless, Rohrbach thought. Have to have a talk with the people in the outer office, though. Can’t have strangers just wandering into the inner sanctum whenever they felt like it.

  He escorted the tall caller out, shutting the door behind him, and returned to his desk shaking his head. It was a wonderfully wacky world, which was fortunate for him because he had pages to fill.

  By charming coincidence one of the Truth’s northern California stringers had filed a nice, juicy little rumor suitable for a bottom front-page banner. At the story conference they settled on “Elvis’s Gay Lover Comes Forth in San Francisco! Broke and Dying of Aids!” for a headline. The story was accompanied by several conveniently blurry photos of some poor skeletal figure laid up in a hospital bed.