Andrew Roller Presents
THE FADING UNIVERSE

CHAPTER FIVE

"Perry spotted this beautiful blonde little girl, see, playing in a corridor," Flaherty explained to Marvin.

"And he ran after her," Marvin wryly concluded, guessing Flaherty's next sentence.

"Right," the corpulent youth continued.  "She ran twenty or thirty yards, weaving in and out between the pillars of machinery, and then suddenly slipped between the metal frame of an open door and was gone.  Perry sprinted up to the door, hesitated a moment, and then leapt in after her.  By the time I reached the door they had both disappeared."

"Then what?" Marvin asked, his voice distorted with nasality, for he was pinching his nostrils shut with his thumb and forefinger.  He, Flaherty, Frankie, and Harrigan were sitting precariously on a narrow shelf, their feet dangling over the edge just inches above the foam crusted waters of a giant cesspool.  A low ceiling, thick with the tendrils of dangling algae, extended over the waste to a horizon where it seemed to merge with the foul sea.  A Stellite doorframe arched over them, delineating the square black cavity that stood at their backs.
  
"Me and Harrigan thought the girl might have some lovely little brothers," Frankie told Marvin.  "You were still out of it, so we figured we better just take you along.  Of course, Flaherty was afraid of being left alone in the dark," Frankie smirked.

"I was not!"  Flaherty objected.

"So where are we now," Marvin asked.  "Lover's leap?"

"Beats me," Frankie said.  "There sure aren't any cute little boys around here."

"Wait a minute," Flaherty said.  "What's that?"

A small raft appeared to be floating toward them, manned by a figure in a yellow hat and raincoat.  Beside him stood a companion.

"Ho there," a gray-bearded man called from the bark as it drew near.  "Taking a tour of the sewer?"

"Not quite," Marvin replied.  "Could you give us a lift?"

"It'll cost you," a boy beside the old man piped up.

"Now, now," the senior said.

"And no traveler's checks!"

"Not even," and here Marvin paused theatrically as he stepped down onto the raft.  "Not even American Express?"

"No way!"  the boy shouted.

The old man chuckled.

"But I will take Playboys if you got 'em."

"How about Blueboy?"  Harrigan asked.  "That's my favorite, isn't it, Frankie?"

"Blueboy?" the lad blurted.  "Good God, gran'pa, throw these gays o'erboard into the shit!  They won't need to excavate for it if they're swimmin' in it!"

"I'm no queer," Flaherty blustered.

"Says you!"  The boy replied.  "Birds of a feather flock together, that's what I've always heard."

"Not me!"  Flaherty hollered.  "Why, I'd play with myself before I'd ever even think of being a fag!"

"A preventative he employs every night to insure his thoughts never stray," Frankie added.

"Don't mind my boy," the elderly man laughed.  "He's a bit precocious.  Actually, I came out here to get you.  The ride won't cost you a thing."

"How did you know we were here?"  Marvin asked.

"You blew out my power generator when you came through that Door," the old man said, gesturing at the tenebrous alcove.  "Chip here and I, we try, but we can't keep up with all the maintenance down here.  This cistern was built for a crew of fifty, not for an old salt and a stripling.  But we keep it going, just like my father did, and his before that.  Family tradition, you know."

"You mean you, you live down here?"  Flaherty asked in amazement.

"Sure, gay boy.  An' work too," Chip said.  "What do you think happens to all yer shit when you flush the john?  You think it just evaporates or somethin'?  Didn't it ever occur to you that someone has to process all that muck so it can get fed back up to yer tap?"

"Tell me," Marvin said to the old man.  "What's this business with the doorway?"

"Ah, you must never have traveled through one before.  They're probably all shorted out in your area.  Where are you from, son?"

"Ontario."

"Now that's a place I never heard of," the old man mused.  "But I have picked up a person or two in the sewer before, totally bewildered, stumbled through a Door somewhere and landed here."

"Does everyone who steps into a Door come out down here?"  Marvin asked.

"Oh, no.  There are Doors scattered all through the universe," the old man explained.  "You just step into one anywhere and it'll take you wherever you like.  Just line up the co-ordinates."

"Like Flaherty tried to do when we stepped into that doorway on the outskirts of Ontario," Frankie glared.

"Just 'cause you didn't get to travel to pretty little girl and boy land, like Perry," Flaherty sniped.

"It's a bit tricky, operating the Doors.  Chip here could probably explain it to you better than I.  I don't care for 'em myself; being dissolved into protoplasm, beamed across the universe, re-formed on the other side.  Haven't stepped into one for thirty years."

"Say, I'm pretty handy with tools, if you need help fixing your generator," Flaherty volunteered.

"Ha!  You?  You couldn't screw your dick into a pocket pussy," Frankie sneered.

Flaherty's paunchy cheeks reddened.  "You have no regard for etiquette," he snapped at the dwarf.  "I'm sure I could be of assistance to this man in some fashion."

"Now there's an interesting fact; about the generator," the old man said.  "Usually, if there's a problem somewhere in the electrical lines the generator will shut down to protect itself from an overload.  But in the case of the Doors, it works just the opposite.  Because human life is involved, the generator will burn itself out rather than click off and leave someone to dissipate between Doors."

Suddenly the old man tensed.  He spun around and picked up a laser rifle.  Marvin heard a frothing sound.  To his right a massive serpentine fornix flexed above the water, then dove beneath the foam.  A moment later the head burst forth, and with a roar the viper's jaws descended upon them.  The old man fired the rifle, hitting the creature square on the forehead.  With a shriek, the sloped cranium of the snake plunged beneath the sea, drenching all aboard the raft in pungent spray. 
 
"Damn you, Rover!"  Chip cursed.

"Next time I won't set the gun on stun," the old man called after the reptile.

A bubbling snarl was heard, the monster's back arched above the waves once more as he retreated, and then there was silence.

"Rover?"  Flaherty asked Chip.  "Rover?  I suppose you have a very good reason for naming that giant snake Rover instead of, say, Spot?"

"Sure.  He roams the sewer.  Sounds like a good name to me," Chip said.

Suddenly the snake surfaced again with a deafening cry.  Flaherty leapt backward across the raft, eyes bulging with fright.

"It's a marvelous name, terrific, first rate!"  Flaherty screeched.  "I'm even considering changing my own name to," he gulped, "Rover."  And with that Flaherty collapsed to the deck.

###

"What are you laughing at?"  Flaherty asked angrily.
  
"The way you fainted when that sewer snake let out a defeated growl," Frankie chortled.

"Don't you care that we're lost?"  Flaherty cried.  "This is a serious matter!"  He, Frankie, Harrigan, and Marvin were trudging through a dusky labyrinth.  After disembarking from the old man's raft they had showered, laundered their clothes, and eaten a hearty supper in his home along the shore of the sewer.  After the evening meal they helped the old man repair his generator, and then he asked Chip to show the four guests how to manipulate a nearby Door.  Chip had just begun his demonstration when he stepped outside the door for a moment.  Suddenly there was a blinding flash of white light and Marvin, Flaherty, Frankie, and Harrigan, who had been standing inside, were beamed to another part of the universe.

The three boys and Harrigan had waited by the Door at the other end for several hours, hoping that Chip would come after them.  Finally they stepped back inside the Door and attempted to make it function.  Nothing happened.  Then they tried to reverse the co-ordinates.  This time the Door worked alright, but it didn't take them back to the sewer.  They spent the better part of a day skipping through the universe, rearranging the co-ordinates again and again.

"I think I've seen every empty hallway in the universe," Marvin finally groaned, so they disembarked and went off in search of food.

They had been walking for an hour when Marvin spotted the fluorescent glimmer of a small community nestled in a clearing.

"Looks like a nice place," Flaherty remarked.

###

Marvin stood easily behind a serving bar, his elbow supporting his weary frame as it rested on a Formica counter.  He washed down a roast beef sandwich with a frothy draft beer.

"Pizza's ready," Flaherty announced, prompted by an oven timer.  Marvin refilled his empty glass.

"This is a great little town, ain't it?"  Flaherty asked.  "Tons of fresh food, oodles of money."  Flaherty's pockets, like Marvin's, were stuffed with wads of dollar bills.  "Can't figure out for the life of me why it's deserted, though."

A piece of crust broke off Flaherty's pizza and dropped to the floor.  Suddenly a little metal mouse scurried out and snatched up the chunk of hard dough.

"Eeeyah!"  Flaherty shouted, dropping the pizza.  At once a dozen mice streaked out and busily consumed the overturned pie, nudging aside the aluminum pan.

"Don't be frightened, I think they're the cleanup squad," Marvin laughed.

"The what?"  Flaherty asked.

"Make a mess, they'll swallow it up."  Marvin said.  "I think they kill bugs, too."
  
"No wonder there aren't any around," Flaherty remarked.  "Not a fly."  Then a mischievous gleam lit up his eyes.  "Hey, these little mice could be fun," he remarked.  A moment later he was parading about the living room, spilling beer and dropping food.  A stream of mice followed him, hurriedly gulping down the debris.

"Well, I think I'll turn in," Marvin said with a yawn.

"Don't take the room on the left," Flaherty warned.  "Frankie and Harrigan are in there.  And they ain't sleeping."

"Have dick, will sodomize," Marvin quipped, climbing the stairs that led to the bedrooms upstairs.

"Hey, Marv, you don't think the owners of this place are gonna come back tonight or anything, do you?" Flaherty asked as he stood alone in a corner with a pack of expectant mice surrounding him.

"Naw, if you ask me, the last resident of this town died centuries ago.  Those mice probably ate his dead body."

Flaherty gazed in astonished disgust at the shiny little creatures that stood at his feet, peering up at him.

"See, this whole village is automated," Marvin continued.  "Every house.  The machines don't know their masters are gone.  They dutifully keep cooking meals, drawing baths, requisitioning provisions from some computerized supplier."

"Gee," Flaherty gushed.  "Hmmm, I think I'll go to bed myself."

Flaherty mounted the first half dozen steps of the staircase.  He paused.  He glanced over his shoulder.  The pack of mice sat at his heels.

"I think you mice have eaten enough tonight," Flaherty said.  He took a few more steps, but they tagged right along.  "Now, now, time for beddy-bye," Flaherty advised the burnished little rodents.

###

Flaherty sat upright in a stately king-sized bed, the crisp sheets folded over his legs.  Two dozen mice surrounded him, perched atop the covers, their whiskered snouts quivering anticipantly.

"Don't you guys have your own bed?"  Flaherty asked hotly.  "Gee whiz!"

Marvin crouched near the chubby youth's bed, rifling through a backpack Flaherty had found in the house and filled with appurtenances.

"Flaherty, you've got enough toothbrushes here to last a century," Marvin exclaimed.

"Well, I believe in being prepared," Flaherty replied.

"No wonder I couldn't find any toothbrushes in the bathroom," Marvin said.  "Geez, look at all the rolls of toilet paper you've got.  Are you expecting to come down with dysentery?"

"Bathroom tissue is a handy, multipurpose item," Flaherty said.  "Why, it can be used as a napkin, a paper towel, or even writing paper."

"Alright, alright," Marvin said, standing and stretching.  "From now on I'll remember your advice and always steal all the toilet paper out of any bathroom I find."

"Foresight negates the need of hindsight," Flaherty said, launching into an exposition.  Marvin shook his head and left the room.

###

Marvin pulled off his shirt.  He examined the stump of his right arm in a mirror.  Black stitches crisscrossed the base of the stub.  A doctor had attended to his injury at Casey's.  There hadn't been much the doctor could do; just remove the tourniquet and suture the veins.  At times, such as when Marvin first arrived in the sewer, he completely forgot about his missing member.  Usually, though, its loss tortured him.

Marvin sank onto the bed.  Elsa drifted into his thoughts.  He couldn't believe she was gone.  His whole world had collapsed in a matter of hours.  Maybe his mother had been right after all.

"Crime doesn't pay," his mother had always cautioned, shaking her head in sad disapproval as her only child skipped off with Perry on some childish criminal escapade.  Of course, Marvin had always made as if he was just going out on a lark, "cruising," as he would often say.  The night Marvin was carried home by his compatriots, writhing in agony, his freckled features seared by a police flamethrower, was the night the facade of innocence had fallen apart and his mother's heart had broken.  She was never quite the same after that.  Marvin would often find her, haggard, crying in a darkened corner of the house.  It was as if she were weeping as much for the injuries Marvin had yet to sustain as for those which had already befallen him.  Fortunately, perhaps, she had died before Ontario pronounced a death sentence inabsentia on Marvin, Perry, and Frankie at age fifteen.

Fatigue overcame Marvin's thoughts and he fell asleep to the satisfied groans of Frankie and Harrigan copulating in the adjacent room.

###

Marvin awoke in the dark bedroom bathed in sweat.  He rolled onto his side and retched.  He shuddered feverishly.

A shaft of light fell upon him as Frankie stumbled into the bedroom.  The dwarf dropped to his knees, convulsed, and vomited on the carpet.

"You too?"  Marvin moaned.  His bowels rumbled, and a moment later diarrhea flooded his trousers.

"We're all sick," Frankie croaked.  "Harrigan, Flaherty, God!  Marvin, I feel like I'm gonna die!"

Suddenly a drove of mice appeared, chattering happily as they feasted on the excrement and vomit.

Icy perspiration pricked the pores of Marvin's brow.

"I know why there aren't any people here," Marvin screamed.  "This entire town is nothing but a nest for some deadly plague."

"Jesus Christ!"  Frankie cried.

Marvin threw himself out of the bed.  He crawled across the floor, dripping offal.

"Got to escape, find a Door," Marvin mumbled.

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