by John Everson
His fingers connected with a lock of greasy hair and then he saw the whites of human eyes on the pillow right beside him. They were inches from his own, and despite the darkness, he recognized them instantly.
Angie.
“Good morning, lover,” she whispered. Only her whisper was more like a grating rasp. As if her vocal cords were rusted. “You passed out the last time I visited, before we were through.”
Austin jumped and instinctively pushed himself back from her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. Her eyes flashed in the darkness. “You used to want me to come on to you when you were asleep. You used to always say I could wake you up any time.”
“That was fine when you were alive,” he said without thinking.
Her eyes narrowed. “So, there were conditions?” she asked. “You never said that before. You always promised you’d love me forever.”
Angie raised herself up from the cot on one elbow. He could see that she was naked this time. Her nipples were wide and dark; he’d always loved that about her. But instead of her normal creamy complexion, he could also see purple and blue blotches covered her skin. And blackened places.
She was rotting.
Angie’s fingers reached out to wrap around his back, and he shivered as their cool, wet touch slid across his skin. Her touch made his skin crawl; he wanted to vomit.
Austin scooted backward on the bed and Angie’s teeth flashed.
“I was good enough for you before the bitch,” she whispered. “Wasn’t I?”
She moved her fingers across his cheek, and he saw that her nails were now yellow atop blackened fingertips.
He stifled the feeling in his throat.
“Why are you here?” he finally managed to say.
“I’m here for Ceili,” she said. “I’m here to make sure you do the right thing.”
He considered that for a moment and nodded. “I don’t know what the right thing is now,” he admitted. “I want her to live. But I don’t want her to be damned.”
“Then get her out of here,” Angie said. Her voice was like a file across rough metal.
Austin flinched.
“How can I do that when I can’t get out of here myself?” he asked.
“Figure it out,” she demanded. Then she slid her body across the cot and over the top of him. She was a cold, horrible, naked weight on top of him. And he wanted to dissolve into the sheets beneath him. His wife was lying on top of him, and he was disgusted beyond words. She was slimy, decaying and…dead.
“Tell me what to do,” he said.
Angie laughed. “Oh, now you want me to give you the answers. I was always the last person you’d listen to…you could never admit when you were lost.”
“I’m not lost,” he said. “I’m trapped.”
She ran a cold finger across the cut in his chest and traced the scabs down to his belly button. When she reached the end he suddenly flinched. He couldn’t take her touch anymore and he instinctively threw her off of him.
Angie responded with a backhand to his face. He tasted something foul and then her fingernails gouged their way down the path that Regina’s witches had carved. Angie opened his wounds with blackened fingernails and then pushed herself up from the bed to stand.
He could feel the blood welling hot from the scabs she’d broken.
“Get over yourself,” she hissed. “Our baby needs you. She needs you to get her out of here. She doesn’t need your pathetic whining. And she doesn’t need you to kill her. She needs you to be a man. Grab your balls and pull yourself up and find a way out of this room so that you can protect her. She can’t walk. She can’t do anything yet. But she has a whole life ahead of her, and it shouldn’t be lived here.”
Angie put her hands on her hips, a disconcerting picture. A naked corpse, showing her unbridled disgust.
“You let me die. Don’t make the same mistake again. Don’t let her die too, just because you were too much of a selfish bastard to find the way to save her.”
Angie’s head suddenly tilted the ceiling and she frowned. “She’s calling me, I have to go.”
With that, Angie turned her back and moved toward the steel door on the other side of the room…and when she reached it, her body suddenly grew foggy, translucent. He could see the door through the black curls of her hair, and then she passed through the barrier and disappeared.
Austin wiped the place on his face where she had touched him…and then moved his hand across his chest as well. It came back sticky and warm and wet with broken scabs and blood.
But it didn’t come back with an answer. What was he supposed to do? How could he save Ceili from this place? How could he save himself?
Angie’s appearance hadn’t served to help him at all. She’d only made him feel more helpless.
Austin lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He realized there was a witch’s star there, tucked within a satanic circle.
He was lost. Broken. Trapped.
And he didn’t know what to do to get out of this one.
Eventually, he fell back asleep, the trail of wet, salty tears streaming across his cheeks.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The night passed like a century. Minutes stretched into hours, hours into years. Austin lay on his rock-hard bed staring into the darkness above, struggling to find answers. What could he do to save his baby? Why was his wife appearing to him now as a rotting, hideous corpse? What was real? Was he slowly losing his mind?
Something spoke from far away and stopped him from idly musing. He couldn’t hear what the voice said, but he couldn’t deny that someone was speaking somewhere nearby. Someone in the hall just outside his cell?
He rolled off the bed and tried to follow the sound. But the closer he got to the door, the farther away the words sounded. The voice wasn’t coming from the door where Angie had disappeared. It was behind him. Which made no sense.
It was coming from the wall behind his bed.
Austin pulled the cot away from the wall and stepped into the gap left behind. He could hear the voice a little clearer. It spoke words of prayer. A familiar cadence. He struggled to place it, pressing his ear against the wall and closing his eyes. He still couldn’t hear the words clearly, but he heard the rhythm. And then it clicked as the words started over….
“Our Father, who art in Heaven….”
It was faint, far away, but someone was on the other side of the wall, reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Austin pressed his hands against the wall and felt along the rough surface for…something. He couldn’t be hearing voices through rock, could he? There must be some kind of entryway to another room beyond his.
And then his fingers reached the area just a couple feet above the ground and found the hard, metal ridges of a vent.
That’s how he was hearing the voice. Through a duct.
Austin knelt down and felt carefully along the edges of the vent. It wasn’t simply an air duct. It was the ventilation grille on a full metal door. His fingers found the edges and traced it carefully all the way around. It was about two feet tall and more than two feet wide. The vent was just a small section of a much larger entry.
A door that he needed to open.
Austin traced all of the lines in the metal, trying to find the spot where he could force the door. There was a small lock in the right side.
A keyhole.
Only…he didn’t have a key. Or a paper clip. Or anything really that he might use to pick a lock.
Shit.
He pressed his ear to the vent and could hear the words a little louder and clearer. This was definitely where the voice was coming from. It sounded like a man praying, very far away.
Austin needed to make those prayers be closer.
He moved his fingers along the floor, searching for something that h
e could use to pick the lock and open the door.
It was bare.
Then he traced the underside of the cot. It had wires and springs; surely there had to be something there he could bend and adapt?
Something gouged his finger, and Austin winced. He withdrew it and sucked a drop of blood from a small nick in the tip. Damnit. He lay down on the floor and looked under the cot to see what was there.
The thing that had gouged him was obvious. There was heavy spring that held the wire mesh supporting the mattress to the metal frame. He’d poked himself on the end.
Austin ran his finger down the frame of the small cot, looking for something else that could help him. He came back to the twisted metal wire of the spring. Maybe there was something he could do with that?
Austin tried to unwind the piece that had stabbed him…but it didn’t budge.
He risked breaking the skin again and finally pulled away. He wasn’t going to move that bit of metal with his bare finger.
Footsteps sounded from the hall outside and Austin rolled back onto the top of the cot. He didn’t need anyone seeing him investigating the underside of the bed.
A moment later, something metallic clanked in the door and he heard the lock click. Austin forced his head to lie back, though he kept his eyes open. Someone entered the room and set a tray down on the floor near his bed. One of the nuns. She leaned over the bed and he could see her nipples pushing against the translucent black film she wore. It was a strange look for a prison warden.
“This might be your last supper, so try to enjoy it,” she said.
She didn’t stay to hear his response. The door rattled closed before he could sit up. But when he did, there was a metal tray with a plate of Thai Pad Prik sitting next to his bed. He knew that Regina had sent it…she knew that he could eat Thai food every day. She was taunting him.
Bitch.
He didn’t turn down her offer; he was starving.
For a moment, he considered that she could be poisoning him…or at least drugging him…with the food. But he ate it anyway. The lure of jalapenos and wide noodles and onions and sauce was just too much. It tasted awesome and he was starving.
It was after he’d eaten his fill that he realized what he’d been given.
A fork!
Austin thought about all the times Angie had complained about him bending the tines on their forks when he’d cut his meat with too much ‘brute force’ and bent her precious silverware. This time though….
He lifted the thin excuse for a mattress and wedged two of the prongs of the fork into one of the springs. And pushed. The spring didn’t budge, but the prongs on the fork bent.
Austin smiled. And pulled the bed out from the wall. He found the lock in the small door, and pressed the now-isolated tines in.
Nothing happened.
He twisted the fork, but there was no click.
Austin swore, and jiggled the metal again, twisting his wrist back and forth trying to feel for a connection.
When it happened, he wasn’t prepared. The fork suddenly turned, and he opened his eyes in surprise. But he didn’t lose his cool; he pulled the fork toward him and sure enough…the vent door creaked outward.
All right then.
Austin walked to the door and tried to look down the hall. He couldn’t see anyone. He returned to the bed, pushed it out farther, and took a deep breath. Then he put his arms into the opening and felt ahead into the darkness.
There was only cold metal around him. Austin shrugged and launched himself inside. He didn’t know how often they’d come to check on him, and he couldn’t hide the evidence of where he’d gone once he’d ventured into the vent. So…he went.
Austin wriggled his way down the vent, his shoulders hitting and moving him down the shaft. He wished he could make his feet pull the vent door closed, but that wasn’t going to happen.
He moved down the shaft as quick as he could; he worried about cutting himself on metal edges, but he shimmied ahead carefully. The passage stretched out in front of him in utter darkness. He placed his hand on the cold metal and pulled himself forward, a foot at a time. It was eerie because he couldn’t see anything. The path ahead was unknown, a dark shadow that he could crawl through…but couldn’t see through.
Little by little he inched forward; the darkness stretched on and on. He was completely alone in the dark. He couldn’t see ahead or behind…but he had to keep going. Every time he put his hand down, he feared that he’d impale himself on a rusty screw or shard of glass…or something worse. But he had to keep moving through the black. Moving on faith.
Until he suddenly saw an orange glow. Evidence that he wasn’t completely lost in the dark.
Austin moved faster toward the light. It was good to be able to actually see what he was moving toward. Even if he didn’t know what the light held. It had to be better than the black.
The light was streaming in through a vent in the duct he crawled through. He arrived at it and could look down through the grates and see a hallway below. Which made him feel better – he could see something! But…he couldn’t get out there.
He paused at the grate and realized quickly that unless he wanted to unscrew the vent with his fingernails, he wasn’t going to get out of the tunnel here. He at least felt better that he could see something. He took a deep breath and forced himself to begin crawling again. He needed to find a way out, and this was not it.
Austin moved slowly, relentlessly, forcing his fingers to crawl forward into the pitch-black dark.
He could taste the dank air. He could feel the sweat trickling down the edge of his spine. But he continued forward.
And then he came to another place in the metal tunnel where light trickled in. It wasn’t much, but he could see the tips of his fingers. And the small mounds of dust and dirt that coated the surface he crawled across.
When he reached the source, he pushed his fingers in the grates and tried to lift the vent cover.
The edge of the metal moved.
A grin slipped across his face. This might be the way out.
The vent caught, but he slipped his fingers under the gap and shoved.
There was a screech – the sound of stripped screws catching on metal – and then the vent lifted.
Austin pulled the grate aside and looked down through the hole. There was a cement floor below, and a faint yellow light. Just barely enough to see the walls and floor. He didn’t know where it was…but he couldn’t be choosey either. He needed to get out of this vent.
He slid his feet through the opening and wedged his hands on the corners of the vent, bracing to hold his weight…and let his body slide through. He hung in space for a moment and took a breath. Then he let go.
Austin’s feet hit the cement below hard and gave way. He instantly fell on his ass and rolled. A moment later, he was back on his feet in a dark corridor. He walked a few steps and the hall ended in a doorway. He stood at the threshold a moment, hesitating. And then took a breath and stepped inside.
The room beyond was apparently…a museum.
Or maybe a shrine.
He wasn’t sure which. There were wooden pedestals and stands spaced around the long room, against the walls, and in the center. Atop each stand was a glass case. There were some cases also hanging from the walls, with costumes displayed inside – long white vestments encrusted with rubies, violet sashes with the symbols of moon and star stitched into them in gold thread.
The room was lit with lanterns inset every few feet along the walls. There were also candle stands in the front of the room, with small flames gently flickering. Austin walked to one of the cases – a small glass box at the top of a one-foot-wide wooden pedestal. He refrained from whistling, but just barely.
Inside were the bare bones of a human hand. They lay on black velvet, finger bones perfectly aligned, as if the flesh
had simply melted away while the hand had been sleeping.
Austin stared at the yellowed bones for a moment, as if waiting for them to suddenly spring to life. And then he shook his head, and moved on to the next cabinet, against the wall. There was something dark inside. It was small and round, but its surface was wrinkled and uneven. It lay atop the same black velvet that the hand bone case had, and with the low light and dark background, Austin could not tell immediately what it was. It could have been a large tree knot for all he could tell.
But then he stepped back and saw the plaque on the outside of the case.
Heart of Berniece D’arcy
Saint of Seduction
November 3, 1993
Okay. He didn’t know what that meant, or why the heart of Berniece D’arcy deserved preservation and display, but the idea of a shriveled heart lying in state in front of him made him shift backward a half step.
Austin looked at the case next to this one and his eyes widened for a moment. There was no mistaking what the contents were, though the object was blackened and curled. This case held a human ear atop the black velvet.
Ear of Renaud Merilee
He Heard The Call
June 23, 1982
He stepped past it to the next, and it held the mummified but still identifiable tube of a human penis. The caption read:
The Best of Dennis Jones
Ceremony of Selflessness
March 13, 2007
He could see the curled, ragged edge where the thing had once connected to a man’s groin and Austin shivered and almost crossed his legs. He shook his head and stepped away. He understood being selfless…but whatever that ceremony had been, it was not about selflessness.
There was a larger box near the back of the room, flanked by two candelabras. Part of him knew what he was going to see before he peered over the edge, but he was still shocked when he looked within.
The naked corpse of a woman lay within, her skin shriveled and brown, the pits of her eyes sunken and skull-like, though the bone was still covered in a layer of dried flesh. The skin looked ancient – brown and leathery, with wrinkles throughout. The puckers of her nipples appeared almost black, and the thatch of hair at her groin, though matted, appeared full.
