Ghost City Blues: Love and Death in the time of Corona Virus

Twelve

The Red House, Upstate New York, USA. March, 2020.

"He's not in here either."

Anna heard this, grunted in English, and opened her eyes to see two strange creatures in her room. The storm seemed to have ceased a little. A bright, full moon gilded silver the edges of the bedstead in front of her, and the fur and the spikes on the creature's backs. They were huffling and snuffling over by Dylan's bed.

"Hey." Anna didn't know what else to say.

Both creatures stopped.

"She can see us?" said the one with the horns and spines.

"Nah," said the other, which looked like a huge possum - or a cross between a rabbit and sloth. Panting, its fur bristled in the moonlight, rising slightly on its neck and haunches. "Surely not?"

"I can see you," Anna said.

"She can see us," said the one with the two horns and the spines down its back.

"Eat her," said the other. He was the leader, the one usually dressed as a man. They'd given up wearing the human skins. Too uncomfortable. Besides, they were so far away from everywhere that if something went wrong they could just eat everyone. Every last one of them. What the hell would it matter?

"What?" Anna sat up. "No!"

"Why can she us?" asked the one usually dressed as a woman. He'd been the one leading the complaints about their disguises; he'd ground the other down.

"They're looking for Dylan," said Gart, who everyone now turned and looked at. "Ac-actually they're looking for Plague, who is with Dylan. I think."

"Do you know where they are?" the one with the horns said.

"Whoa!" Anna waved a hand in front of his face. "My god, your breath stinks!"

The horned one stepped back and shook its snout.

"Who the hell are you?" Anna asked.

"Better if you ask what they are," Gart told her, sneaking across to Anna's bed. "This one here's an Arsinoitherium. Kinda like a cross between a rhino and an elephant. Or a dinosaur and a – well, I don't know, an elephant? A mammoth? It's a prehistoric mammal. They both are. Only kind of scaled down. I mean this guy," he was pointing at the other, the big possum-type creature. "This one's a Megatherium. I mean, in the wild these guys were huge. This one here is a midget version. A dinky toy compared to the real thing."

The scavengers were conferring. "We're going to ask you one last time," the Megatherium asked, when they turned back. "Where is the goddess?"

"Which goddess?" asked Anna. "I'm completely lost here."

"You fell asleep," said Gart. "Dylan came over and for some reason, I think because of something his mom told him, he could suddenly see Plague, and they brought you back here, put you to bed. I thought they'd be in here but...unfortunately not."

Anna shook her hands. "I have no idea about this. No idea."

But the two creatures had now taken on a sinister aspect and were crouched prepared to attack. "You have been warned," the spined one said.

"If you kill us, you're not going to know anything," said Gart. He had pressed himself up against the horrible wallpaper.

"We know nothing now," said the Arsinoitherium. He was by far the meaner. The killer of the two. Stamping his foot, dragging it back as though the patchwork floor throw were dust, he shook his leathery grey head and snorted loudly from his flaring nostrils. "So what's the difference?"