Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  My first thought was to let Culley, Howard, and the colored boy finish her in the courtyard. They could use water from the fountain to wash away any stains on the courtyard bricks. Howard would take her around to the garage, wrap the remains in a shower curtain to keep the interior of Dr. Hartman’s Cadillac clean, and Culley would be down the alley and off to the dump in five minutes.

  But I did not know enough. Not yet. If she was from Nina, I had to learn more. If she was not from Nina, I wanted to find out who had sent her before we did anything.

  Culley and Howard led her into the house. Dr. Hartman, Nurse Old-smith, Nancy, and Miss Sewell gathered around while Marvin stood guard outside. Justin kept me company upstairs.

  The Negro girl who said she was from Nina looked around my parlor at my family. “It’s dark,” she said in a strange, small voice.

  I rarely use the lights anymore. I know the house so well that I could make my way through it blindfolded and the family members have no real use for electric lights except when they are tending me, and up here the soft, pleasant glow from the medical monitors is usually adequate.

  If this colored girl was speaking for Nina, I found it odd that Nina was not used to the dark yet. Her coffin certainly must be dark enough. If the girl was lying, she would be familiar with the dark soon enough.

  Dr. Hartman spoke for me. “What do you want, girl?”

  The Negress licked her lips. Culley had helped her into her seat on the divan. My family members were all standing. Faint lines of light fell across a white face or arm here or there, but the rest of us must have looked like dark masses to her as she stared up at us. “I’ve come to talk to you, Melanie,” said the girl. Her voice held a soft quaver unlike anything I had ever heard in Nina’s speech.

  “There’s no one here by that name,” said Dr. Hartman in the darkness.

  The Negro girl laughed. Had there been a hint of Nina’s husky laugh in that sound? The thought of it chilled me. “I know you’re here,” she said. “Just like I knew where to find you in Philadelphia.”

  How had she found me? I had Culley’s huge hands rise to the top of the divan behind the girl.

  “We don’t know what you’re talking about, miss,” said Howard.

  The girl shook her head. Why would Nina Use a Negro? I wondered. “Melanie,” she said, “I know you’re here. I know you’re not feeling well. I’ve come to warn you.”

  To warn me of what? The whispers had warned me in Grumble thorpe, but she had not been part of the whispers. She had come later, when things went bad. Wait, she had not found me— I found her! Vincent had fetched her and brought her back to me.

  And she had killed Vincent.

  If this girl were truly an emissary from Nina, it might still be best to kill her. That way Nina would understand that I was not to be trifled with, that I would not allow her to eliminate my cat’s-paws without some retribution.

  Marvin still waited in the darkness outside with a long knife Miss Sewell had left lying on the butcher block. It would be better outside. I would not have to worry about stains on the carpet and hardwood floors.

  “Young lady,” I had Dr. Hartman say, “I’m afraid that none of us know what you are talking about. There’s no one here named Melanie. Culley will see you outside.”

  “Wait!” cried the woman as Culley lifted her by the arm. He turned her toward the door. “Wait a minute!” she said in a voice not even remotely like Nina’s unhurried drawl.

  “Good-bye,” the five of us said in unison.

  The colored boy waited just beyond the fountain. It had been weeks since I had Fed.

  The girl twisted in Culley’s grasp just as she reached the door. “Willi isn’t dead!” she cried.

  I had Culley stop. None of us moved. After a moment I had Dr. Hartman say, “What was that?”

  The Negro girl looked at us with an insolent defiance. “Willi is not dead,” she said calmly.

  “Explain yourself,” said Howard.

  The girl shook her head. “Melanie, I will speak to you. Only to you. If you kill this messenger, then I will not try to contact you again. The people who tried to kill Willi and who are planning to kill you can have their way.” She turned and stared into the corner, disinterested, paying no attention to Culley’s huge hand where it was clasped tightly on her arm. The girl looked like a machine that someone had switched off.

  Upstairs, alone except for the silent company of little Justin, I writhed in indecision. My head hurt. It was all like a bad dream. I wanted this woman just to go away and leave me alone. Nina was dead. Willi was dead.

  Culley brought her back across the room and sat her on the divan.

  All of us watched her.

  I considered Using the girl. Sometimes— frequently—during the transition to another’s mind, during the second of dominance, there is a shared flow of surface thoughts accompanying the sensory impressions. If Nina was Using this one, I might not be able to break the conditioning, but I might be able to sense Nina herself. If it was not Nina, I might catch a glimpse of her true motivations.

  Howard said, “Melanie will be right down,” and in that second of reaction— whether fright or satisfaction I do not know— I slipped into the girl’s mind.

  There was no opposition. I had been braced to try to wrest control from Nina, and the lack of opposing force caused me to mentally stumble forward like a person in the dark leaning his weight on a chair or dresser that was not there. Contact was brief. I caught the fear-scent of panic, the sense of not again common to people who had been Used before but not conditioned in the interval, and a scurry of thoughts like a stampede of small animals in the dark. But no coherent thoughts. There was a fragment of image— an old stone bridge of sun-warmed stone crossing a strange sea of sand dunes and shadows. It meant nothing to me. I could not associate it with any of Nina’s memories, although there were too many years after the war where I had not been with her for me to be sure.

  I withdrew.

  The girl convulsed, sat upright, swept her stare around the dark room. Nina regaining control or an impostor flailing for composure?

  “Do not do that again, Melanie,” said the Negress and in her imperial tone I heard the first convincing echo of Nina Drayton.

  Justin entered the room carrying a candle. The flame illuminated his six-year-old face from below and by a trick of light caused his eyes to look ancient. And mad.

  The Negro girl watched him, watched me, as a skittish horse would watch the approach of a snake.

  I set the candle on the Georgian tea table and looked at the Negro girl. “Hello, Nina,” I said.

  The girl blinked once, slowly. “Hello, Melanie. Aren’t you going to say hello in person?”

  “I am somewhat indisposed at the moment,” I said. “Perhaps I will come down when you choose to come in person.”

  The black girl showed a hint of a smile. “That would be difficult for me to do.”

  The world spun before my eyes and for several seconds it was all I could do to keep control of my people. What if Nina had not died? What if she had been injured but not mortally?

  I saw the hole in her forehead. Her blue eyes rolling up in her head.

  The cartridges were old. What if the bullet had struck the skull, even entered it, but done no more damage to her brain than my cerebral-vascular-incident had done to me?

  The news had announced that she had died. I had heard and read her name among the victims.

  As was my name.

  Next to my bed, one of the medical monitors began beeping a shrill alarm. I forced my breathing and heart rate to calm. The beeping ceased.

  From my other viewpoints I could see that Justin’s expression had not changed in the few seconds that had passed. His six-year-old’s face was still distorted by the leaping candle flame into the mask of a young demon. His small saddle shoes pointed straight up on the cushion of the upholstered leather chair that had always been Father’s favorite.

  “Tell me about Wil
li,” I said through Justin. “He is alive,” said the girl. “Impossible. His plane was destroyed with all aboard.”

  “All except Willi and his two henchmen,” said the Negress. “They got off before it departed.”

  “Then why did you turn on me if you knew that you had not succeeded with Willi?” I snapped.

  The girl hesitated a second. “I did not destroy the plane,” she said. Upstairs, my heart pounded and an oscilloscope showed green peaks that caused the green light in the room to pulse along with my heartbeat. “Who did?” I asked.

  “The others,” she said flatly. “What others?”

  The girl took a deep breath. “There is a group of others with our power. A secret group of . . .”

  “Our power?” I interrupted. “Do you mean the Ability?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Nonsense. We have never encountered anyone with more than a shade of our Ability.” I had Culley raise his hands in the darkness. Her neck rose thin and straight from her dark sweater. It would snap like a dry twig.

  “These others have it,” the colored girl said in a strong voice. “They tried to kill Willi. They tried to kill you. Didn’t you wonder who it was in Germantown? The shooting? The helicopter that crashed into the river?”

  How could Nina know about that? How could anyone know? “You could be one of them,” I said craftily.

  The girl nodded calmly. “Yes, but if I were, would I come to you to warn you? I tried to warn you in Germantown, but you would not listen.”

  I tried to remember. Had the Negro girl warned me of anything? The whispers had been so loud then; it had been hard to concentrate. “You and the sheriff came to kill me,” I said.

  “No.” The girl’s head moved slowly, a rusty metal marionette. Nina’s Barret Kramer had moved like that. “The sheriff was sent by Willi. He also came to warn you.”

  “Who are these others?” I asked. “Famous people,” she said, “Powerful people. People with names such as Barent, Kepler, Sutter, and Harod.”

  “Those names mean nothing to me,” I said. Suddenly I was shouting in Justin’s shrill, six-year-old voice. “You’re lying! You’re not Nina! You’re dead! How would you know about these people?”

  The girl hesitated as if debating whether to speak. “I knew some of them in New York,” she said at last. “They talked me into doing . . . what I did.”

  There was a silence so still and so prolonged that through all eight of my sources I could hear doves roosting on the ledge outside the bay window on the second floor. I had the boy outside shift the knife from his cramped right hand to his left. Miss Sewell had backed softly into the kitchen and returned now to stand in the shadows of the doorway with the meat cleaver held behind her beige skirt. Culley stirred and in his hungry impatience I caught an echo of Vincent’s sharp-edged eagerness. “They urged you to kill me,” I said, “and promised to eliminate Willi while you dealt with me.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But they failed and so did you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Nina?” I said. “It only makes me hate you more.”

  “They betrayed me,” she said. “They left me alone when you came for me. I want you to finish them before they return for you.”

  I had Justin lean forward. “Talk to me, Nina,” I whispered. “Tell me about old times.”

  She shook her head. “There is no time for this, Melanie.”

  I smiled, feeling the saliva moistening Justin’s baby teeth. “Where did we meet, Nina? Whose ball were we at when we first compared dance cards?”

  The Negro girl trembled slightly and raised a dark hand to her forehead. “Melanie, my memory . . . there are gaps . . . my injury.”

  “It did not seem to bother you a moment ago,” I snapped. “Who went with us to Daniel Island on our picnics, Nina, dear? You do remember him, do you not? Who were our beaus that long-ago summer?”

  The girl swayed, her hand still at her temple. “Melanie, please, I remember and then I forget . . . the pain . . .”

  Miss Sewell approached the girl from behind. Her thick-soled nurse’s shoes made no sound on the rug.

  “Who was the first one claimed in our Game that summer at Bad Ischl?” I asked just to allow Miss Sewell time to take the last two silent steps. I knew this colored impostor could not answer. We would see if she could imitate Nina when her body remained sitting on the divan while her head rolled across the floor. Perhaps Justin would like something new to play with.

  The Negro girl said, “The first one was that dancer from Berlin— Meier I think her name was— I do not remember all the details, but we spotted her from the Cafe Zauner as always.”

  Everything stopped. “What?” I said. “The next day . . . no, it was two days later, a Wednesday . . . there was that ridiculous little iceman. We left his body in the ice house . . . hanging from that iron hook . . . Melanie, it hurts. I remember and then I don’t!” The girl began to cry.

  Justin scrunched to the edge of the cushion, dropped to the floor, and went around the tea table to pat her on the shoulder. “Nina,” I said, “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

  Miss Sewell made tea and served it in my best Wedgwood china. Culley brought in more candles. Dr. Hartman and Nurse Oldsmith came upstairs to check on me while Howard, Nancy, and the others found seats in the parlor. The little black boy stayed in the bushes outside.

  “Where is Willi?” I asked through Justin. “How is he?”

  “He is well,” said Nina, “but I am not sure where because he must remain in hiding.”

  “From those same people you mentioned?” I asked. “Yes.”

  “Why do they wish us harm, Nina, dear?”

  “They fear us, Melanie.”

  “Why would they fear us? We’ve done them no harm.”

  “They fear our . . . our Ability. And they were frightened that they would be exposed because of Willi’s . . . excesses.”

  Little Justin nodded. “Did Willi also know about the others?”

  “I think so,” said Nina. “At first he wanted to join their . . . their club. Now he simply wants to survive.”

  “Their club?” I said. “They have a secret organization,” said Nina. “A place where they meet each year to hunt preselected victims . . .”

  “I see why Willi would want to join them,” I said. “Can we trust him now?”

  The girl paused. “I think so,” said Nina. “But if nothing else, the three of us need to band together for protection until this threat has passed.”

  “Tell me more about these people,” I said. “I will,” said Nina, “but later. Another time. I . . . tire easily . . .” Justin put on his most angelic smile. “Nina, darling, tell me where you are right now. Let me come to you, help you.”

  The girl smiled and said nothing.

  “Very well,” I said. “Will I see Willi?”

  “Perhaps,” said Nina, “but if not we will have to work in concert with him until the appointed time.”

  “The appointed time?”

  “A month from now. On the island.” The girl brushed her hand across her forehead again and from her trembling I could see the exhaustion there. It must have taken all of Nina’s energy just to make the girl move and talk. I had a sudden image of Nina’s corpse moldering in the darkness of the grave and Justin shivered.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Later,” said Nina. “We will meet again and speak of what has to be done . . . how you can help. Now I must go.”

  “Very well,” I said and my child’s voice could not hide the childish disappointment I felt.

  Nina—the Negress— stood, walked slowly to Justin’s chair, and kissed him— kissed me— gently on the cheek. How many times had Nina given me just this Judas kiss before one of her betrayals? I thought of our last Reunion.

  “Good-bye, Melanie,” she whispered. “Good-bye for now, Nina, dear,” I replied.

  She walked to the door, glancing to either side as if Culley or Miss Sewell would stop her at any moment.
We all sat smiling in the candlelight, our teacups on knees and laps.

  “Nina,” I said as she reached the door.

  She turned slowly and I was reminded of Anne Bishop’s cat when Vincent finally cornered it in the upstairs bedroom. “Yes, dear?”

  “Why did you send this nigger girl to night, dear?”

  The girl smiled enigmatically. “Why, Melanie, didn’t you ever send a colored servant on an errand?”

  I nodded. The girl left.

  Outside, the colored boy with the butcher knife drew deeper into the bushes and watched her pass. Culley had to come out to unlock the gate for her.

  She turned left and walked slowly up the dark street.

  I had the colored boy slide along in the shadows behind her. A minute later Culley opened the gate and followed.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Charleston Tuesday,

  May 5, 1981

  Natalie forced herself to walk the first block. As she turned the corner and stepped out of sight of the Fuller house, she knew that she faced the choice of letting her knees buckle and collapsing to the sidewalk or running.

  Natalie ran. She covered the first block in a wind sprint, paused at the corner to look back, and caught a glimpse of a dark form crossing a yard as headlights from a turning car swept across him. The young man looked vaguely familiar, but from that distance she could not see details of the face or features. But she could see the knife in his hand. Another, larger figure, came into sight around the corner. Natalie ran south for a block and turned east again, panting now, fire burning at her ribs as she tired, but paying no attention to the pain.

  There were brighter streetlights on the block where she had left the station wagon, but the shops and restaurants were closed, the sidewalks empty. Natalie skidded to a stop, pulled open the door on the driver’s side, and threw herself into the front seat. For a second a deeper, more mindless panic seized her as she found no keys in the ignition and realized that she had no purse or pockets. Almost at once she remembered that she had left them under the seat where Saul could find them when he came to get the car. As she bent over to reach for them, the door on the passenger’s side opened and a man stepped into the car.