accident when Audrey was studying to be a costume designer, long before she’d gone off to Tibet, and she had wanted to design and sew elaborate costumes without the expense of the materials for full-size models—was that each housed a human soul. The first of the Squirrel People had been little more than animated dress forms. Later, Audrey had scavenged the shops of Chinatown for animal parts, trying to give each of them a distinction, trying different parts for limbs, testing efficacy, using first fresh meat and later smoked for the protein that the soul would direct into forming a unique, living creature.
“The universe is always seeking order,” Audrey had said. “The Squirrel People, how they come together, is the best example I’ve ever seen of that.”
“Yeah, or it’s black magic and creepy necromancy,” Charlie had said.
She’d smacked the tip of his enormous dong with her fork, which he thought a not very Buddhist thing to do, and said so. “Buddhist monks invented kung fu, Charlie. Don’t fuck with us.”
“Hey, Bob!” Charlie called down the corridor. “It’s Charlie, I need to talk to you.”
He didn’t really need to say it was Charlie, since he and Bob were the only of their kind for whom Audrey had constructed vocal cords. After Charlie, she’d found out she hadn’t actually been saving souls by making the Squirrel People, but had stopped them in their karmic progression, so he had been the last.
The computer monitor street branched into a half-dozen different passageways, each constructed from a different material. Charlie ducked into one that looked to be made of plastic drainpipe, and shuffled along its length, cutting back and forth until he heard voices coming from the far end. Voices?
He slowed as he approached the end of the passageway and peeked into the wide chamber it opened upon. The Squirrel People had excavated an amphitheater here, under the house, perhaps ten feet below ground level, and it was larger than the grand parlor upstairs. He was looking down over a large group of the people who were surrounding a central platform that looked as if it had been constructed from an old snare drum. How could they have gotten all this stuff down here without being seen?
Bob stood on the snare drum in his bright red beefeater uniform, holding his mighty spork over his head as if it were the staff of Moses.
“Bring the head for Theeb!” he shouted.
“Bring the head for Theeb. Bring the head for Theeb.” The Squirrel People chanted.
From another passage an iguana-headed fellow in a tricorner hat and a squirrel girl in a pink ball gown emerged carrying a silver tray between them. On it was the raggedly severed head of a calico cat.
“Bring the head for Theeb,” they chanted.
Charlie backed into his chamber. How were they chanting? Sure, some of them were still making the clicking noises, the growls, the hisses he was used to, but some were chanting. They had voices.
He crouched and backed away until he was out of sight of the amphitheater, then he turned and scurried out of the city under the porch.
6
Ghosts of the Bridge
A great regret of ghosts lingered on the Golden Gate Bridge. Mad as bedbugs, they slid down the cables, swam in the roadway, hung
off the upright lines, whipped in the wind like tattered battle flags, dangled their feet off the anchor piers, and called into the dreams of sleeping sailors as their ships passed through the Gate. Mostly they napped, curled up in the heavy steel towers, entwined together in the cables like impassioned earthworms, tucked under an asphalt blanket snoring into the treads of a million tires a day. They drifted along the walkways, spun and buffeted by passersby, wafting along like tumbleweeds, rebounding at the shore to bounce back the other way, waves of spirits, a tide of sleeping souls, dozing until awakened by human anguish in their midst. They could sense a jumper on the bridge and gathered around to watch, to curse,
“The universe is always seeking order,” Audrey had said. “The Squirrel People, how they come together, is the best example I’ve ever seen of that.”
“Yeah, or it’s black magic and creepy necromancy,” Charlie had said.
She’d smacked the tip of his enormous dong with her fork, which he thought a not very Buddhist thing to do, and said so. “Buddhist monks invented kung fu, Charlie. Don’t fuck with us.”
“Hey, Bob!” Charlie called down the corridor. “It’s Charlie, I need to talk to you.”
He didn’t really need to say it was Charlie, since he and Bob were the only of their kind for whom Audrey had constructed vocal cords. After Charlie, she’d found out she hadn’t actually been saving souls by making the Squirrel People, but had stopped them in their karmic progression, so he had been the last.
The computer monitor street branched into a half-dozen different passageways, each constructed from a different material. Charlie ducked into one that looked to be made of plastic drainpipe, and shuffled along its length, cutting back and forth until he heard voices coming from the far end. Voices?
He slowed as he approached the end of the passageway and peeked into the wide chamber it opened upon. The Squirrel People had excavated an amphitheater here, under the house, perhaps ten feet below ground level, and it was larger than the grand parlor upstairs. He was looking down over a large group of the people who were surrounding a central platform that looked as if it had been constructed from an old snare drum. How could they have gotten all this stuff down here without being seen?
Bob stood on the snare drum in his bright red beefeater uniform, holding his mighty spork over his head as if it were the staff of Moses.
“Bring the head for Theeb!” he shouted.
“Bring the head for Theeb. Bring the head for Theeb.” The Squirrel People chanted.
From another passage an iguana-headed fellow in a tricorner hat and a squirrel girl in a pink ball gown emerged carrying a silver tray between them. On it was the raggedly severed head of a calico cat.
“Bring the head for Theeb,” they chanted.
Charlie backed into his chamber. How were they chanting? Sure, some of them were still making the clicking noises, the growls, the hisses he was used to, but some were chanting. They had voices.
He crouched and backed away until he was out of sight of the amphitheater, then he turned and scurried out of the city under the porch.
6
Ghosts of the Bridge
A great regret of ghosts lingered on the Golden Gate Bridge. Mad as bedbugs, they slid down the cables, swam in the roadway, hung
off the upright lines, whipped in the wind like tattered battle flags, dangled their feet off the anchor piers, and called into the dreams of sleeping sailors as their ships passed through the Gate. Mostly they napped, curled up in the heavy steel towers, entwined together in the cables like impassioned earthworms, tucked under an asphalt blanket snoring into the treads of a million tires a day. They drifted along the walkways, spun and buffeted by passersby, wafting along like tumbleweeds, rebounding at the shore to bounce back the other way, waves of spirits, a tide of sleeping souls, dozing until awakened by human anguish in their midst. They could sense a jumper on the bridge and gathered around to watch, to curse,
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