Jim and the Flims (12 page)

“Whatever you say,” I said, beginning to wonder how I could get out of here.

Weena stretched high her arms and whistled, far and wee.

11: The Jivas

C
ued by Weena's call, intense cries and yelps erupted a block or two away, the sounds muffled by the spatial labyrinths. I recognized, in particular, the agitated and angry tone of Diane Simly, her voice growing in a crescendo. I grinned, coldly imagining her husband's fate—then felt guilty. Sure, the Simlys were jerks, but—

Lights appeared in the sky, blurred and warped by multiple reflections. But they were feeling their way closer to us, and soon their forms became clear. They resembled illuminated flying turnips with dangling tails. And now they were hovering over the Whipped Vic's back yard, four of them, their luminous tendrils brushing the trees. The uncanny jivas were quite beautiful. Each of them had a particular pattern of spots and stripes, a bit like children's tops.

The biggest jiva—Weena's partner, Awnee—had refined her look since I'd last seen her. Awnee was now a warm shade of reddish-yellow with three embossed blue bands like necklaces around her tail. She bore a mauve zigzag stripe around her waist, with six pale blue gems set above that, each gem centered in a splashy burst of color. She'd added something like a hat on top—a flat green disk with a golden knob. Her two children were equally elaborate, each in a different way.

The yuel gibbered his defiance at the jivas, something like, “Sing, fight, die.” He leapt heavily to the ground and his eyes locked onto Weena. Showing his teeth, he charged across the lawn, and then leapt up to the deck's railing.

The rush of events had me off balance. I had no idea how to fight the yuel. Fortunately the jivas entered the fray. Their vine-like tails lashed through the air, and wrapped the yuel around his middle, squeezing him tight.

But the yuel had another card to play. He began singing an eerie little tune, a song of almost unbearable sweetness. It seemed to get into my head and vibrate my sinuses—the sensation was somehow unbearable. The jivas were even more affected by the ghostly sound—they dropped the yuel and backed away.

The yuel might have won the day, but now Weena stepped in. Straining her spindly old arms to the utmost, she raised high her green-handled axe and slammed the butt-end of it against the yuel's baboon head, stunning him into silence.

The three jivas seized the opportunity. Within moments, the fine hairs of their branched tails were sinking deep and deeper into the yuel's blue flesh, dissolving him with a burbling hiss and a smell like ammonia.

The yuel's tune was still echoing in my head, like a particularly viral advertising jingle. “What was that creepy song ?” I asked Weena.

“We call it a yuel lullaby,” she answered. “It's the yuels' preferred defense against jivas. A certain type of song.”

“Grim and grimmer,” said Ira, now standing on the back porch. He and Gina had drifted out to join us.

“I just hope those fighting things aren't devils and angels,” said Ginnie. “I never liked the religion trip.”

“The four flying turnips are jivas,” said old Weena. “They're a part of Flimsy—some people say they're Flimsy's brain cells. And the yuels—they're a part of Flimsy as well, playing an obscure but vital part in Flimsy's metabolism. Don't trust the yuels. The jivas are our protectors and our friends. Behold.” She held out a gnarled hand and beckoned to the zigzag-banded one. “Come,Awnee! Come back aboard, my dear one. I need you. Forgive me if I ever made you feel unwelcome.”

The gaudy turnip compressed her branching tail into a single strand. And now she shrank—from the size of an armchair to a pumpkin to a fist and down to the size of a robin's egg. Weena opened her mouth and Awnee wriggled inside, disappearing down the old woman's gullet. My former lover pursed her thin lips and drew in the pinkish-yellow tail like a wayward strand of spaghetti.

Almost immediately, Weena grew young again. Her skin was smooth, her stance lissome, her lips plump. “You should do this as well, Jim,” she said, her eyes sparkling with nervous energy.

“Why do jivas want to live inside people?” I asked, temporizing. “What's in it for them?”

“They're nosy,” said Weena. “They like to learn personal secrets and to become involved with people's lives. Not intending any insult to Awnee, one might say that jivas have a dull emotional life when left on their own. So—are you ready, Jim?”

An awkward silence fell. Running on automatic now, Ira and Ginnie's ghostly sound-mix was echoing through the empty house. And upstairs, sodden Header slept on.

“I'd feel weird about eating a flying jellyfish,” said Ginnie. “And what's with the green axe, Weena?”

Weena didn't answer that one. “Open that round portal door in the cellar, Jim,” she told me, clutching the axe in her now-vigorous hands. “The border snail wants you to. Meanwhile, I'll proceed upstairs to serve justice.”

“Stop her, Ira! ” exclaimed Ginnie, suddenly getting the picture. “Sure, Header's majorly obnox, and right now he's cheating on me, but—”

“Hear me, Ginnie!” interrupted Weena. “This Header person is the tool for the fop whom you released from the tunnel. The Graf from Flimsy. The Graf took control of Header's mind. Now stand aside.”

Not waiting for an answer, Weena brushed past Ginnie and Ira, carrying the axe across her chest like a firefighter. Just to make the scene crazier, two of the new-born jivas crowded into the house in her wake, bouncing along the ceiling like balloons on New Year's Eve.

Ginnie followed as far as the doorway and stopped there—shocked, scared, unsure, adorable. Ira put his hand loosely on her shoulder. The fourth jiva draped her tail over my arm. I could pick up a little teep from her. She was talking to me by stringing together nouns.

“Friend Jim partner life me Mijjy.”

Lately I'd been Weena's pawn, reacting to events as they arose. It was time to do something for myself—or so I thought. “Come on in, Mijjy,” I said, and opened wide. I wanted teep and the ability to make zickzack. I was ready to be a superman. Fool that I am, it didn't cross my mind that I'd be making myself into a slave.

The jiva shrank to the size of a radish and floated forward. I hardly felt her going down my throat. What I felt, rather, was a body-wide tingle as Mijjy linked her root hairs into my nervous system. Immediately I felt less drunk and stoned than before.

And there was a physical effect as well. The jiva was souping up my body. My belly grew firm and my features tautened—thanks to a web of tendrils beneath my skin. More than that, the jiva thickened my tendons, cushioned my joints, and bulked my muscles. I flexed my supple fingers, savoring my new strength.

Ginnie was staring at me, fascinated. I was as fit as a pro surfer.

But all this paled beside the jiva's mental effects. It was as if the world around me were made of glass. I could see microbes, I could see all of Santa Cruz. And I could pick up the vibes of the others' minds—especially Weena's. Our jivas seemed to be in a subtle connection with each other.

Looking through Weena's eyes, I could see her marching up to Header's room, her axe at the ready, the two other newborn jivas bouncing along behind her. Weena wakened Header with a rough shove and began talking to him in a low, even tone. She was reciting a death sentence. Header began to bellow. His voice sounded different than before. Less human.

“Oh this is horrible,” said Ginnie, holding her ears.

“So okay, I'm going down to open the cellar door,” I said quickly. “Do you two want to watch?”

I led the way down the deck's stairs—everything was pink and yellow from the dawning light. The round door was still in the cellar wall, with the hand-shaped depression awaiting my touch. My dog Droog appeared, yawning and shaking his ears. He'd been lying low. I took a quick peek into his mind, as simple and comfortable as a cartoon. Food?

Just then the screaming upstairs peaked, and we heard the nightmarish thud of that green-handled axe hitting home. I closed off my images of what Weena was doing. Shrieks and gurgles sounded in the air. Ginnie bust into sobs. More thuds, staggering footsteps, and—an upstairs window burst outwards in a shower of fragments. Header tumbled through, landing on the lawn with a sodden thump. He was wearing a blood-soaked terry bathrobe. The two extra jivas drifted in his wake, watching.

Header had a gory wound in his chest, and another blow of the axe had split the top of his skull. Surely he was dead. For two long seconds we silently stared at his remains.

But now—how horrid and strange—something moved. The halves of his skull. They were pulsing, quivering, spreading apart like a clamshell. Droog howled and ran into the house. Ginnie covered her face and groaned.

I saw a blue slug lurking within Header's ruined skull. Impossible. But this was real. The blue shape oozed forth from the skull's crack, growing protuberances and taking on a rounded form—it was another yuel, a four-legged baboon-thing, just as powerful as the one before. I was able to pick up on this one's name. Rickben.

“Save love buzz slosh,” he teeped.

The two airborne jivas began flailing at the new yuel, but right away he started up with a sweet and creepy song like the other yuel had used. A yuel lullaby. Unable to bear the insistent vibrations, the jivas drew back a few dozen yards. And, given that I had a jiva inside me now, the music was even more excruciating for me than before—it disturbed me at a deeply visceral level. Rickben the yuel was crawling towards Ginnie, who seemed paralyzed with fear. The yuel had stretched out a slimy pseudopod, a slender vine that was already wrapping around Ginnie's foot.

To drown out the lullaby, I began braying out the first song that came to mind, some random classic of punk rock. Coached by Weena's teep, I held out my hands and willed my jiva to send tendrils from my fingertips. The tendrils appeared, glowing a faint red.

I sank my tendrils into the yuel and my resident jiva began siphoning off his energy. The doomed Rickben sent a pseudopod my way, but I dodged him. And then, aha, I'd drained him down to a lump, to a slug, to a last left-over noodle lying across Ginnie's foot.

Ginnie picked up the blue noodle and—ate it.

“What are you thinking!” I scolded. “It might be poisonous.”

“Hell, you ate the rest of it,” said Ginnie. “Yuels are full of—what's that word Weena used? Kessence. With the condition I'm in, I'm never hungry for regular food.”

Ginnie was interrupted by Weena's cheers from the second floor. “Jim conquers the father yuel—the vile Rickben! You're a wonderful assistant, Jim! Glory shall be thine!” She was still holding the axe, its steel head drenched in gore. The two free-floating jivas were sweeping their tendrils across the lawn, sniffing out any last any yuel fragments that remained.

“Heavy,” said Ira. “So who's going through that tunnel in the cellar now?”

“Jim and I!” intoned Weena from on high. “I'll take Jim to the Duke to prepare his great mission. This is urgent, the yuels are more aggressive than we'd foreseen. I find it interesting that the Graf would smuggle the yuel Rickben within his body's mass. The Graf was liquidated, yes, but the yuel escaped the Graf 's body and entered Header's skull, undoubtedly to eat his brain. And Header slimed out a yuel-bud when Jim arrived. A Rickben Junior.”

“Header,” echoed Ginnie softly. “You're saying he was a zombie when I met him at the surf break. A dead body controlled by an alien yuel in his head. I guess that's why—”

“Quick now, it's time for Flimsy!” interrupted Weena, cutting off the conversation. She ran down through the house and joined us in the yard, all the while wiping blood off her hands and arms with one of Header's T-shirts.

“I'm not going anywhere with Weena,” said Ira. “I don't trust her at all.”

“Nobody's asking your opinion,” said Weena tartly. “I only want Jim.”

“I'd like it better if Ginnie would come,” I said. I turned to the dark, punky waif. “Would you be up for it?”

“Well...maybe,” said Ginnie, giving me a weak smile. Her short hair framed her pert face like feathers. “I've pretty well run all the changes I can on Earth. And I'm really upset about—” She gestured at Header's maimed corpse.

“Would you youngsters drag those remains onto the steps?” ordered Weena, ignoring our conversation. “The house and the porch and the steps are dimensionally obscured, but whatever we leave on the ground will be visible in the empty lot that the commoners see. No need to stir up trouble before you return with your delivery, Jim. Step lively and move that thing!”

Ira alone took hold of the corpse's legs and ineffectually tugged. Ginnie turned away and stared at the glowing haze. I blocked out Weena and stood beside Ginnie, putting my arm around her. How soft and insubstantial she felt.

With theatrical sighs and grumbles, Weena helped Ira schlep the corpse halfway up the steps to the deck, and tied it in place with the belt of the bathrobe.

“That's sufficient,” she said impatiently. “And why are you canoodling, Jim? Open the goddamn fucking magic door!” She broke off and forced a smile. “I regret that I'm beginning to speak as coarsely as you.”

“What about Ginnie?”

“Very well then, it's fine if Ginnie comes. You see how I cosset you, Jim? Ginnie, you should swallow one of those two jivas. She'll help you on the trip.”

One of the two jivas got small and drifted over to Ginnie's face. She resembled a rosy grape with a curly tail.

“Tell me again what she's going to do to me?” said Ginnie.

“The jivas tune you towards optimal fitness,” said Weena. “And you'll have telepathy. And you'll be able to make zickzack objects from of empty space. Oh wait, Ginnie, you'd do well to take a dose of my tonic first. Jim had already taken some last week.”