Faerie Tale

by Raymond Feist

  The dark man bent down, a moment out of Sean’s view, and the boy felt an odd, cold stab in his chest, as if the hand that had reached inside a moment earlier had torn something precious from deep within. He knew the man had Patrick! Sean felt the scream within battering against whatever held it in check, frantic to get out. Sean swallowed hard, his throat constricted in fear, and managed to gulp down a breath of air.

  Then the dark man rose up before Sean, Patrick lying asleep in his outstretched arms. Suddenly the man shifted Patrick, holding him cradled like a rag doll in his left arm, as his right hand snaked forward toward Sean.

  In a hoarse whisper, little more than a dry croak, Sean said, “Mommy.”

  A whispering echo played in the room, mocking him as it sang, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” getting fainter and fainter.

  The faint, glowing hand hesitated and the dark man withdrew it. In a harsh whisper he uttered a single word. “Ward.”

  Sean gripped the fairy stone tightly, shaking his head as he repeated his almost inaudible cry: “Mommy.” Again came the mocking echo, repeating the word over and over, softly, quietly, offering no hope of being heard outside the room.

  The dark man, his ghost voice sounding like a thousand fluting reeds in the wind, spoke. “Remove it.”

  Sean suddenly moved, his skin prickling with an alien fever, as if this dark terror radiated heat. He scuttled to the head of the bed, trying to get as far from the glowing black figure as he could. He pushed himself as deep into the corner as possible, his small feet scraping against the sheets and covers. Tears ran down his face as his eyes were locked, staring at the invader. Patrick nestled in the man’s arm like a kitten and his eyes were vacant, his expression slack-jawed. He seemed without color, faded to grey half-tones. “The ward, boy!” The voice was as soft and quiet as before, but more commanding. When Sean remained motionless, the dark man signaled toward him.

  Suddenly the Bad Thing sprang from the floor to the foot of the bed. It scampered forward, to squat before Sean. Large brown eyes, surrounding whites a luminous yellow, were set in a face like a demented monkey’s, with the fangs of a baboon seeming to glow as it grinned at Sean. Its body looked like a tiny man’s, but with too many joints in the too long arms and legs, and its skin was a sooty charcoal color, like an ancient mummy’s or a bat’s. It stank of things dead for ages, and its hot and repulsive breath blew in Sean’s face as it made slobbering, sucking sounds. A taloned hand reached for the boy, but hesitated.

  Suddenly another figure leaped up from below, and Sean’s heart jumped. Patrick stood crouching upon the foot of the bed. Then Sean saw that it wasn’t Patrick, but some evil caricature of himself! The boy was physically identical to Sean, but was nude, and his head moved in an odd fashion, much like a monkey’s in the way it turned one way and another as he regarded Sean. The doppelgänger absently played with himself as he watched Sean, again like a monkey in the zoo. An evil leering grin was fixed in place as he reached out to touch Sean. Like the Bad Thing, when he came close to the ward he yanked his hand away.

  Sean’s eyes were wide, whites showing completely around the irises, and tears streamed down his cheeks. His nose ran and his mouth worked silently. The creatures seemed to struggle against something as they reached toward the fairy stone around the boy’s neck. Once, twice, three times in turn, each tried to grasp the ward, only to halt scant inches away. At last the Bad Thing turned to face the dark man and spoke. Its words were twisted, a mockery of human speech, slurred and thick, as if the tongue were the wrong size and the mouth filled with cotton. “Master. Hurts.” The false Sean’s mouth opened wide and he hooted, a mad monkey sound.

  Sean’s tremble turned to more violent shaking, a near-uncontrollable palsy throughout his body. His skin burned with a poison fever. A miasma of evil washed over him, filling his nostrils, forcing breath from his lungs, choking him, threatening to drown him in mindless panic. Sean’s jaw worked as he struggled to cry for help, but all that came forth was short, pitiful yelps, almost inaudible against the wind howling outside.

  Sean saw the Bad Thing turn to regard him once more, and again the clawed black hand came forward, as if to touch him.

  For a terror-torn instant, Sean’s mind sought to flee his body, and he felt himself almost lift from the bed by force of will. Like an overwound watch spring, the tension became too much to endure. Like a captive animal crashing the bars of his cage, he sought escape and, finding none, redoubled his fury. Again the Bad Thing reached toward the boy, and withdrew his hand. Sean whispered, “Mommy.”

  The strangled note of a tormented violin mocked him as the Bad Thing grinned and repeated the word. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” it sang, its breath filling Sean’s nostrils with the stench of decay, its face set in a happy mask, as if something in that word amused or pleased it. The mock Sean mouthed the word as the Bad Thing sang it, but the sound produced was an animal grunt.

  Then the dark man leaned close, until his face was scant inches from Sean’s. Suddenly he was alight, in an intense glow that hurt Sean’s eyes. And for the brief instant of that shining brilliance, Sean saw the face of the man. Eyes, set in deep sockets, locked with Sean’s and Sean felt his mind twist, as a long, low, pain-filled sound at last escaped the boy’s lips. For in those eyes Sean saw lightning dance, as electric-blue orbs sought to burn his soul. A beauty so pure it was terrifying greeted Sean in that instant, something alien, beyond the ability of the human mind to accept. And in that instant Sean wanted nothing more than to give up all will and go with the man, and in that rush of unexpected longing came a desire so concrete Sean’s body rocked. For that desire was something he was not ready for, something reserved for changes not yet come, when love and tenderness turned to passion. But now it struck Sean with a wanton heat, a hunger so intensely sexual that his body could not interpret his desires. Sean found his child’s penis stiffening unexpectedly, while his body shuddered and his skin prickled with chill bumps. Perspiration poured off his body, soaking his pajamas. He looked over at his false twin and found a leering creature squatting a few feet away, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he fondled himself, rocking from side to side, a reflection in a befouled glass made solid. The evil twin’s eyes were wide like Sean’s, but, rather than terror, his expression was one of perverted, inhuman desire.

  Sean’s heart pounded in his chest and he could endure no more. His bowels contracted, and his tiny erection vanished as his bladder emptied. His stomach spasmed as if a knot were pulled tight. And in that instant of blinding light, of adult longings shocking his child’s body, of beautiful passions twisted to black lust, Sean knew a thing. It was a thing that he had thought he had known before, when the Bad Thing had first come to their room, or when Patrick had been swept away in the storm. But those encounters had been but grey shadows compared to this ultimate black. The thing Sean knew was horror. It had passed through him and surrounded him, and now it was made solid. And it stood before him in the guise of the being he would ever after know as the Shining Man. That recognition triggered the release of all that was trapped inside.

  Sean screamed.

  Beyond anything he would have dreamed possible, he screamed, a sound to pierce the soul. He screamed so loud that it seemed his mother’s voice was answering before the sound had finished echoing down the hall to the stairway.

  Time froze for Sean, and a dozen images came crashing in upon him. The light about the Shining Man vanished, returning him to darkness surrounded by a faint blue glow. He moved, and Sean glimpsed his face from the corner of his eye. For an instant Sean saw an inhuman expression of hate so evil and demented that nothing in the world could frighten the boy after seeing that. Sean continued screaming. The Bad Thing tumbled back, away from the sudden sound, unsure of what to do, while the false Sean rolled backward with a monkey’s shriek, to fall out of sight, landing at the foot of the bed.

  Sean could see the Shining Man holding Patrick in his arm like a baby doll. His brother seemed pale, without
color. Sean’s screaming continued. From the hallway he could hear his parents calling his name and his brother’s, Gabbie’s voice asking what was wrong. Bad Luck was scrambling up the stairs, his bark challenging anything that would harm his family. Sean continued to scream.

  The Shining Man again stepped toward Sean, reaching for him. He snatched his hand away, as if conceding Sean was beyond his ability to capture. A hollow sigh of resignation was followed by the distant voice saying, “We will meet again.” Then came a laugh so chilling it punched through the scream.

  Sean knew despair.

  The Shining Man retreated into the corner. The Bad Thing and the false Sean scurried to stand at their master’s feet, while the Shining Man held Patrick in the crook of his arm as if he weighed nothing. The remaining glow around him faded, and gloom drank all sight of the four figures in the corner.

  Then the room light blazed into being and Gloria stood in the door. She froze for an instant as she saw the dark creatures crouched in the corner beneath the man figure that held one of her sons in his arms. All were still shadows, as if the room light couldn’t quite vanquish the murk. Then the dark figures were gone. Gloria paused in mid-step, blinking in confusion, not believing her senses. The instant passed. Gloria shook her head slightly, as if clearing her vision. She glanced down to see Patrick still in his bunk, asleep, as she moved to the bedside. Reaching for Sean, she said, “Honey! What is it?”

  Sean shivered and quaked, unable to control himself. He had wet the bed and filled his pajama bottoms. His eyes refused to focus. His mouth was wide, the jaw flexing as his throat-tearing shriek continued, saliva running down his chin, and his body was drenched in sweat. His breath was sour with fear. He could only make one sound: the scream.

  The scream became reality for Sean. It was something tangible in a world twisted to insubstantial insanity. He could hide within the scream, cover himself in it, wrap it around his family and shelter all within its folds, shaped and molded into a safe place to hide. His throat was raw, and his body ached with tension and pain where fear tried to seep through the skin like a thick burning poison, but the scream continued, reassuring and real. It filled the room, surrounding him and his family with a concrete barrier, as real as wood, or stone, or steel. The scream went on and on, for Sean knew that the moment he stopped, the Shining Man and his companions would come back and get Sean’s mother and father and Gabbie.

  Phil entered the room and came to the bedside; Gabbie stood in the doorway, her expression one of alarm as Phil knelt by the lower bunk. Gloria reached out to touch Sean, but the boy pulled away, as if trying to crawl deeper into the corner. “Sean! What is it, baby?” Her voice rose, as if her disorientation at what she had glimpsed as she entered the room was being compounded by his terror. “Baby, what is it? Please stop screaming. It’s all right.” Her eyes were brimming and her face reflected the pain and the fear she felt within him.

  Sean wanted to tell her it wasn’t all right, and he knew his mother understood it wasn’t all right, she was only saying that; he could see that in her face, but he knew he couldn’t stop the scream to tell her. If he stopped, they’d all be trapped by the Shining Man. All he could do was point at the corner, point and scream. He pointed and tried to make them understand. His right hand pointed and his left pounded the wall, to make them understand. He rocked back and forth and shook from side to side, hitting the wall to make them understand. Gloria stood with her hand poised halfway to her son, made helpless by something beyond her ability to comprehend. In her son she saw torment visited upon the innocent and she stood powerless to help him. Sean screamed.

  “Oh my God!” cried Phil, and Gabbie gripped the doorjamb, her knuckles whitening.

  “What!” demanded Gloria, almost jumping with fright at his tone.

  “Patrick’s unconscious. He’s burning up with fever.

  Oh God. Gabbie, call the hospital and tell them we’re coming.” Phil bundled Patrick in a blanket and carried him down the hall.

  Gloria forced herself to reach out and touch Sean, and said, “He’s burning up, too.” Spurred by the need to care for her son, she ignored the wet blanket and the soiled condition of his pajamas and swept the still-shrieking boy into her arms, gathering the blanket around him. Letting the urgency of the moment banish from her memory the confusing, frightening sight that had greeted her at the door of the boys’ room, she raced down the hall after her husband.

  Gabbie hurried back into her room and grabbed the receiver off the phone by her bed, dialing the operator, asking to be connected to the hospital emergency room. From outside she heard her father’s car starting up, then the tires spraying gravel as he sped down the drive. And into the night, seemingly long after she stopped hearing the car, Gabbie could hear Sean screaming.

  12

  The emergency room staff was ready even before Phil’s car had halted before the hospital entrance. Phil held Patrick’s limp form while Gloria carried Sean. He had not stopped screaming the entire way to the hospital, but his throat was worn to the point where he could manage only a faintly scratchy, hoarse sound. The E.R. staffs professional detachment was unexpectedly reassuring to Gloria, as if whatever was wrong with her boys was only an interesting problem to be solved, nothing to get excited about. The boys were placed on examining tables. Each boy had two nurses beside him. The young doctor in charge, a thin man with a slight New York City accent, listened to the nurse reading vital signs while he examined the boys. He ordered a mild sedative to calm Sean, then became alarmed when the nurse read him Patrick’s temperature. “One hundred six.”

  In calm tones he said, “Okay, it’s spiking. Let’s get him monitored and bring that sucker down.”

  A nurse wheeled over a digital thermometer and inserted a rectal probe into Patrick while another began rubbing him down with alcohol. The LED readout on the thermometer’s display showed 106.2. After a few minutes it rose to 106.4. “Doctor,” said the nurse in a calm, professional manner. “It’s going up.”

  The young doctor glanced at the machine, nodded curtly once and said, “Right; let’s pack him in ice.”

  They picked Patrick up and put a rubber sheet under him. A male nurse brought out two large buckets of ice and began putting handfuls around Patrick, while another nurse held the rubber sheet to keep the ice from spilling from the table. When the ice was covering Patrick, she folded the sheet across his body. The doctor turned away from Patrick to examine Sean. Gloria said, “What are you doing to Patrick?”

  To Phil the doctor said, “Why don’t you take a seat in the waiting room and I’ll be with you in a minute.” When Gloria seemed ready to argue, he said calmly, “Lady, we’ve got a couple of very sick kids here. Let us take care of them, all right?”

  Phil guided his wife from the room and they sat on a vinyl-covered couch. The only sound beside the soft voices of the emergency room staff was the whir of a loud electric clock on the wall. Phil glanced at it and saw it read twelve-twenty in the morning. Phil’s fog of concern was pierced by the realization that Gloria was trembling.

  Gloria kept her eyes upon the emergency room, where strangers worked quickly to save her children, but her mind’s eye kept seeing a remembered image, a strange momentary flicker of darkness in the corner of the boys’ room when she had first entered, and the certainty, for just an instant, that Patrick had been in the corner, surrounded by that darkness. She couldn’t put that image, or the feeling that somehow it was something dimly remembered from her own childhood, from her mind. She sighed and steeled herself against the doctor’s confirming her worst fears, that somehow her boys were lost to her forever.

  Phil reached out and gathered his wife to him, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. He attempted to reassure her with a squeeze, but both knew there was no reassurance for either of them this night. They settled in to wait.

  13

  Jack passed coffee around. He and Gabbie had arrived twenty minutes after Phil and Gloria. Gabbie had called over to Ag
gie’s and he had come at once. He had scouted out a coffee machine and brought a cup for everyone. Gloria’s sat cooling before her as she leaned forward in her seat, motionless, eyes fixed upon the door to the E.R.

  A half hour after Jack and Gabbie arrived, the young doctor came from the emergency room, a file under his arm and a mug of coffee in his hand. Gloria almost jumped to her feet. “How are our boys, Dr.…?”

  “Murphy, Jim Murphy, Mrs. Hastings.” The doctor sat opposite them in the waiting area. He sipped the coffee, and Gloria suddenly became aware she was the only one standing. She sat as Dr. Murphy opened the file and said, “The boy who was conscious—”

  “Sean,” supplied Phil.

  “Sean,” continued the doctor, “was pretty agitated. But besides a high fever—with no obvious cause—we’ve found nothing wrong with him. We’ve sedated him and are moving him to the pediatric ward. If nothing turns up in a day, he can come home. The other boy”—he glanced at the file—“Patrick, is another matter. He had a spiking fever, over a hundred six and … well, we’ve got it down, but we need to watch him closely.” Even as he spoke, two orderlies were wheeling Patrick out of the E.R.

  Gloria watched the gurney roll out of sight and said, “Where are you taking him?”

  There was a note of panic in her voice that made the doctor look at her a long moment before answering. Softly he said, “We need to watch him very closely. We’re moving him to intensive care.”

  Immediately panic was apparent in Gloria’s eyes. “Intensive care! My God, what’s wrong!”

  The doctor attempted to be reassuring. “Mrs. Hastings, Patrick had a very high fever. We’ve lowered it to around a hundred and one degrees, but we’re keeping it there for a while. With a very high fever, the body often loses its ability to regulate its own temperature. We just want to watch Patrick closely for the rest of the night as a safety measure.” He glanced back at the forms Phil had helped the admitting nurse fill out. “The truth is we don’t have a clue to what is wrong with your boys. We can rule out a lot of things just due to their not having any complaints before bedtime. It might be some odd sort of food poisoning, but the rest of you weren’t affected.”