The Dark Game

by Jonathan Janz

  He glanced around in confusion.

  No sign of Lucy.

  She’d been beside him a moment ago, and now.…

  He heard the sounds of a struggle. Traced them to the farthest reaches of the library. Saw the shadows roiling back there, someone dragging someone else, a hand clamped over the person’s face.

  Wells and Lucy.

  “No!” Rick yelled and started to run.

  The door to the tower clanged shut. Rick charged into the shadows, found the door, but it wouldn’t give. He banged on it, bellowed at Wells to let him in.

  But Lucy was gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She’s dead, he thought. You’ll never get her back.

  Rick stood before the unyielding door to the keep, breath heaving, a salty, acrid odor tingling his nostrils. After a moment he realized what it was.

  Miss Lafitte’s burning flesh.

  He turned, hurried back through the library. On the way past the fireplace, he spotted Lafitte’s fire-wrapped corpse, glimpsed the bacon smoke skirling out of the hearth. Though the maid’s death was gruesome, it did imbue him with a species of hope.

  If Lafitte could be killed, Wilson could too.

  And Wells?

  Rick jerked open the library door, hustled through the foyer, and was moving toward the workshop when a scream from above froze him where he stood.

  Will.

  He paused, mind racing. Just because Wells had never shown them an alternate entrance into the tower, didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

  Go for the axe now, chop down the library door.

  Another scream, this one belonging to Lucy.

  Rick charged up the steps. Wells had taken Lucy and Will to the tower. If Rick played this right, he might be able to save both of them.

  He reached the third floor and skidded to a halt. He heard Will’s and Lucy’s voices again, but they weren’t coming from his left, from where he knew the tower to be. They echoed from his right.

  Rick sprinted that way. He didn’t know how or why Wells had smuggled Lucy down this hallway, but he could hear her now, crying softly for help.

  Wells is tricking you!

  He ignored the thought, hastened down the corridor. He neared the source of the sounds, realized they were issuing from a room Lucy had shown him on one of their walks.

  The chapel.

  He stopped outside the door, listened.

  Heard a woman weeping softly.

  He ripped open the door and rushed inside. Spotted the figure in the front pew. The hanging lamps cast a spectral orange glow, spotlighted the stained-glass mosaic of the medieval Wells.

  Rick moved deeper into the chapel. It wasn’t until he rounded the pew and gazed down at the stooped figure that he realized it was his mother. Her sobbing shoulders froze. She removed her hands from her face and peered up at him.

  Her features were emaciated. Purple crescent moons cupped her eyes. Yet her anguished expression was far more lucid than it had been the last time he’d seen her.

  “Why did you leave me, Ricky?”

  The tide of grief was instantaneous. It choked him. He opened his mouth to answer but couldn’t.

  “They were mean to me, Ricky. They snapped at me when I’d ask about you. They told me you didn’t care anymore.”

  He swallowed. “It’s not true.”

  “That’s why people take their loved ones to Memory Walk,” she said. “To forget about them.”

  “I visited you.”

  “Almost never, Ricky. You figured I was too far gone to notice.” She leaned forward, the drooping eyelids terrible, accusing. “But I did.”

  “Mom, I.…” A tear slipped down his cheek. “I had to make a life.”

  “I gave you life.”

  His chest hitched. “You know I loved you. I still do.”

  “You love yourself. After what happened with Phil—”

  “Please don’t.”

  “And that awful man who followed me…”

  Rick’s pulse began to race, a bright blade of fear scything through his grief.

  “…staring at me from the shadows,” she said, her voice frantic. “I begged them to turn on the lights, but they said no one sleeps with the lights on.” She clamped down on his wrist with appalling strength. “I begged them, Ricky, but they just laughed at me. The crazy woman at the end of the hallway.” The gnarled fingers squeezed. “I needed you.”

  “Mom,” Rick pleaded.

  “I was relieved when he went away,” she said, “but deep down I knew he was going after you. But then,” she said, a nasty smile twisting her mouth, “I realized you were just doing what you’d learned.”

  Rick yanked his arm away.

  “It’s what we do, Ricky!” she said, laughing. “We save our own hides, don’t we? We killed your stepfather, we let Raymond Eddy die.”

  Rick buried his fingers in his hair.

  “You were carrying on the family tradition.”

  “Mom, please—”

  “‘Mom, please,’” she mimicked. “If we’d only told the truth, maybe we would’ve gotten off. Maybe we wouldn’t have lost our souls.”

  Rick was moving away when a voice sounded from the altar. “Blind are the wicked, for their sins grow scales over their eyes.”

  All the strength left Rick’s body. He turned and regarded Police Chief John Anderson, who leaned on the lectern, a mountain made flesh, his sunglasses glinting in the orange light.

  “That’s not scripture, by the way,” Anderson said. “Just a fact you never learned.”

  “Where is she?” Rick asked.

  “Your mama? I thought you didn’t give a damn—”

  “Lucy.”

  “Ah,” Anderson said, grinning. “Your new piece of tail.”

  Rick took a step forward. “I control you.”

  “Control me? Boy, you can barely control your own bladder.” The chief moved around the lectern. “I see how scared you are.”

  Anderson approached, his massive body moving with a sinuous fluidity.

  Why couldn’t you have made him smaller? a sardonic voice asked. Or given him some sort of handicap?

  Because, Rick thought, that would have cheated the story. He had to be dangerous. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be scary.

  Mission accomplished, the sardonic voice said. You couldn’t be more overmatched. Have to go back to David and Goliath to find a disparity this severe.

  “You writers,” Anderson said, “you’re all so danged perceptive about other people. But when it comes to yourselves, you’re as clueless as the rest of us. You’re so busy looking at the world that you never bother to look inside yourself.”

  “I’m going to get Lucy.”

  “Just what I’d expect you to say.” The chief advanced, and with a jolt Rick realized his mother was no longer sitting in the church pew.

  Anderson nodded. “Frightened little babe. Don’t you know you can’t run from me?”

  “I need you to help me get Lucy back.”

  “The fuck you think I am, boy? A genie?”

  “You’re in my story,” Rick said. “You’re part of that world.”

  “I’m in every world.”

  The chief was drawing nearer, only fifteen feet away. Rick glanced toward the altar, scouring the area for something with which to defend himself.

  “We don’t have much time, so I’m gonna lay it out for you.” Anderson stepped closer. “There’s power in stories. Even though you writers are a bunch of self-important pussies, I gotta admit, the imagination is an awesome, terrible force. But like any power, it carries the potential to spin out of control.”

  “Don’t come any closer,” Rick warned.

  Anderson kept coming.

  “Last warning,” Rick said, but even to
his own ears his voice lacked conviction.

  “Tell me this,” Anderson said, almost upon him now. “That night Raymond attacked your fiancée, why didn’t you help her?”

  The old hollowness spread through him, the unbearable self-loathing.

  “I’ll tell you why. You were happy it wasn’t you.”

  “That’s not true.…”

  “Come on, boy. You’re about to die. Why not admit what you are?”

  Heat licked the base of Rick’s neck. “No.”

  “Raymond Eddy, your mama.…”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Your fiancé…the other writers.…”

  Rick’s fists squeezed white.

  “…most of all that little quim Lucy.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Can’t write for shit yourself,” Anderson said. “At least you got the chance to bang a real author.”

  Rick raised his fists.

  Anderson grinned. “Do it, boy. Show me what you got.”

  Rick did.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lucy thrashed in Wells’s grip all the way up the winding stone staircase, but no matter how she elbowed his shoulders or kicked his shins, he wouldn’t relinquish his hold. She took to lashing at him with her fingernails, but he was too powerful. When they reached the main tower room, he heaved her through the air, and Lucy crashed down painfully on her side.

  She peered up at him from where she lay.

  He smiled. “I concede that I’m vain. The latter stages of the cycle are always disagreeable for me. My bones aching, my joints sore. Even rising from a chair is difficult. But now—” he executed a quick tap dance and a spin, “—I am nimble again. Whole. The ravages of age have fallen away.”

  He strolled over to a stone pedestal, rolled down the cuffs of his white shirt and splashed water over his face. She’d sliced his left cheek with her fingernails. “I do have to admit you’re a fighter,” he said.

  “Where’s Rick?”

  Wells eyed her speculatively. “Did you suspect? The reverse aging, I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you told yourself it was ludicrous.”

  Lucy didn’t answer.

  “What do you think?” he asked. He gestured toward his body, which not only moved with a sinuous vitality, but was tight with muscle. Several buttons of his white shirt were undone, revealing upper pectoral muscles that were chiseled and tan. His forearms were striated, the muscles there writhing each time he moved. “Do you find me attractive, Miss Still?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Your Mr. Forrester rather pales in comparison.”

  “Where is Rick?” she demanded.

  Wells eyed her a moment longer. “Bring him, Wilson.”

  Wilson emerged from the shadows dragging a bound figure.

  Lucy experienced a leap of hope. Was Rick still alive?

  Then she discerned the curly hair, the protuberant belly.

  Will.

  He wasn’t a small man, but Wilson hurled him forward like a sack of laundry. Wilson reached down, tore away a strip of duct tape from Will’s mouth. Will yelped in pain and covered his mouth with hands bound at the wrists. Lucy suspected a portion of Will’s goatee had been removed when the tape came off, and judging from the way he was uttering obscenities, perhaps a goodly bit of skin had too.

  Wells was smiling down at Will. “I don’t believe the duct tape was necessary, Mr. Church, but you seem to have incurred Wilson’s ire. Things seldom go well for people who do that.”

  “He wants out from under you,” Will said.

  “Divide and conquer, Mr. Church?”

  “I’ll divide his skull,” Wilson snarled.

  Wells stilled his servant with an upraised palm. “No need, Wilson. Assault is beneath you.”

  Judging from his expression, Wilson didn’t look as though torturing and vivisecting Will was beneath him.

  Wells turned to Lucy. “Mr. Forrester is in the chapel.”

  “Is he—”

  “He’s in the process of dying.”

  She felt like she’d been slugged in the gut.

  Wells began to pace. He moved with the confidence and power of a professional athlete. “That leaves the two of you, Miss Still. And since your narrative has developed to a greater extent, the choice will be yours.”

  “What do you mean, ‘to a greater extent’?”

  Wells only looked at her with eyebrows raised. “You’ve created something marvelous, Miss Still. Something…electrifying.”

  Lucy began to tremble. “He’s not real.”

  “Yes he is,” Will said quietly. When Lucy looked at him, he said, “I haven’t seen your character. But I did see my Siren.”

  “Half-formed,” Wilson put in, “like the rest of your novel.”

  Wells said, “Be charitable, Wilson. Mr. Church has created something interesting. Only time will tell whether or not the Siren will wreak havoc upon the world.”

  Lucy leaned forward, a horrific thought dawning.

  Wells nodded. “Yes, Miss Still. The Fred Astaire Killer has already gone forth. Has perhaps claimed a victim already.”

  Lucy’s voice was barely a whisper. “It’s impossible.”

  Wells raised his chin. “Your creation is as skillful as he is amoral. He will kill with the precision of a surgeon.”

  Will’s voice was hollow. “You’re saying we’ve created murderers?”

  “Not all of you, Mr. Church. Only the ones with vivid imaginations.”

  “Marek failed to create anything of substance,” Wilson said.

  “Quite true,” Wells said, pacing again. “The same for Ms. Kovalchyk.”

  “Sherilyn—” Lucy began.

  “—was the most interesting case,” Wells said. “Some writers forged small worlds. Lucy with her farmhouse—”

  “It’s madness,” Will said.

  “The estate is malleable, Mr. Church. Your memories and stories are bound to swirl together.”

  Lucy couldn’t help but remember her father’s corpse, her sister’s frozen stare.

  Wells went on. “Whether Miss Jackson’s fairy tale informed Mr. Forrester’s behavior, merely influenced it, or was a fair prediction based on what she’d observed, we’ll never know.”

  “But it started to come true,” Lucy said.

  Wells gave her a frank stare. “I didn’t know what would happen. I’d never seen a writer try to allegorize the retreat before.”

  Lucy imagined the Fred Astaire Killer stalking his victims. “I can still change the story,” she said. “He doesn’t have to—”

  “He does, Miss Still. Once begun, the cycle cannot stop. Your villain has been unleashed.”

  Will looked like he might be sick. “I thought only one could win.”

  Wells smiled. “There can be hundreds of characters hatched from a writer’s psyche.” His expression darkened, a hardness taking hold. “But in each cycle there can be only one winner.”

  “Let us go,” Lucy said. “Let Rick go.”

  “It’s too late for that, Miss Still, and much too late for Mr. Forrester.” He grinned. “The champion will emerge from this room.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rick landed a few punches before Anderson’s fist pounded him in the gut. The breath whooshed out of him, replaced by a nauseating pain. This was the first time Anderson’s ham-sized fist had connected, but what rage had been fueling Rick’s attack was beginning to wane.

  Extreme pain, he supposed, had a way of stealing your stamina.

  To give himself time, Rick sidestepped toward the seating area.

  The chief followed, a savage grin on his face. “See, this is what amazes me about people. So many know the theory of something, but when you get down to it, very few people are do
ers.”

  Rick slipped between pews, shuffled toward the section opposite.

  Anderson nodded. “You can scurry around like a fucking mouse if you want, but sooner or later, you’re gonna have to face me.”

  Rick’s wind returned by degrees, though the pain from the hammer blow to his belly persisted. It felt as though Anderson had ruptured his liver.

  “Where’d you come from?” Rick asked.

  Anderson lumbered after him. “Gonna talk about me now, huh?”

  Rick reached the far side of the chapel, where the shadows were thickest.

  Anderson barked out a mirthless laugh. “’Course, you’re thinking you can get me distracted. I’ll be so flattered you’re takin’ an interest in me, I won’t notice you tryin’ to escape.”

  “I’m not running,” Rick said, noticing that Anderson had begun to cut off the exit.

  “Suit yourself, Forrester. But don’t forget: you might think you’re my Dr. Frankenstein, but I can read your sorry ass like a motherfucking billboard.”

  I hope to hell that’s not true, Rick thought, but kept his expression neutral.

  Rick gestured to the mosaic. “The stained glass. Is that from life?”

  Anderson moved apace with him. “Your other question was better.”

  Rick retreated toward the raised altar area. “Did you come from the basement? From the walls?”

  “Those look like birth canals to you, boy? The feeding soil only goes one way.”

  Feeding soil, Rick thought. Jesus.

  Anderson glanced up at him, and Rick felt his stomach give a little lurch. He could swear that.…

  He brushed away the thought.

  “You leak out of my ears one night while I slept?” Rick asked.

  “I awakened in the meadow.”

  He remembered the shock of seeing Anderson for the first time, but beneath the memory was another thought, a more important one. Something about Anderson’s wording.…

  “If you kill me,” Rick said, “what becomes of you? You gonna be Wells’s slave?”