The Damnation Game

by Clive Barker

  From some unimaginable place, someone cried out. Whitehead heard the voice, a girl's voice, but lost as he was in a wilderness, he couldn't fix the cry. He had no idea how long he'd been weeping here, watching the damned come and go: it seemed an age. His head swam with hyperventilation; his throat was hoarse with sobs.

  "Mamoulian..." he pleaded again, "don't leave me here."

  The European had been right-he didn't want to go alone into this nowhere. Though he had begged to be saved from it a hundred times without result, now, at last, the illusion began to relent. The tiles, like shy white crabs, scuttled back into place at his feet; the smell of his own stale sweat reassaulted him, more welcome than any scent he'd ever smelled. And now the European was here in front of him, as if he had never moved.

  "Shall we talk, Pilgrim?" he asked.

  Whitehead was shivering, despite the heat. His teeth chattered.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Quietly? With dignity and politeness?"

  Again: "Yes."

  "You didn't like what you saw."

  Whitehead ran his fingers across his pasty face, his thumb and forefinger digging into the pits at the bridge of his nose, as if to push the sights out. "No, damn you," he said. The images would not be dislodged. Not now, not ever.

  "Perhaps we could talk somewhere else," the European suggested. "Don't you have a room we could retire to?"

  "I heard Carys. She screamed."

  Mamoulian closed his eyes for a moment, fetching a thought from the girl. "She's quite all right," he said.

  "Don't hurt her. Please. She's all I've got."

  "There's no harm done. She simply found a piece of my friend's handiwork."

  Breer had not only skinned the dog, he'd disemboweled it. Carys had slipped in the muck of its innards, and the scream had escaped before she could stop herself. When its reverberations died she listened for the butcher's footsteps. Somebody was running in her direction.

  "Carys!" It was Marty's voice.

  "I'm over here."

  He found her staring down at the dog's skinned head.

  "Who the fuck did this?" he snapped.

  "He's here," she said. "He followed me out."

  He touched her face. "Are you all right?"

  "It's only a dead dog," she said. "It was just a shock."

  As they returned to the house, she remembered the dream she'd woken from. There'd been a faceless man crossing this very lawn-were they treading in his footprints now?-with a surf of shit at his heels.

  "There's somebody else here," she said, with absolute certainty, "besides the dog-killer."

  "Sure."

  She nodded, face stony, then took Marty's arm. "This one's worse, babe."

  "I've got a gun. It's in my room."

  They'd come to the kitchen door; the dog's skin still lay discarded beside it.

  "Do you know who they are?" he asked her. She shook her head.

  "He's fat," was all she could say. "Stupid-looking."

  "And the other one. You know him?"

  The other? Of course she knew him: he was as familiar as her own face. She had thought of him a thousand times a day in the last weeks; something told her she had always known him. He was the Architect who paraded in her sleep, who dabbled his fingers at her neck, who had come now to unleash the flood of filth that had followed him across the lawn. Was there ever a time when she hadn't lived in his shadow?

  "What are you thinking?"

  He was giving her such a sweet look, trying to put a heroic face on his confusion.

  "I'll tell you sometime," she said. "Now we should get that damn gun."

  They threaded their way through the house. It was absolutely still. No bloody footsteps, no cries. He fetched the gun from his room.

  "Now for Papa," he said. "Check that he's all right."

  With the dog-killer still loose the search was stealthy, and therefore slow. Whitehead wasn't in any of the bedrooms, or his dressing rooms. The bathrooms, the library, the study and the lounges were similarly deserted. It was Carys who suggested the sauna.

  Marty flung the door of the steam room open. A wall of humid heat met his face, and steam curled out into the hallway. The place had certainly been used recently. But the steam room, the Jacuzzi and solarium were all empty. When he'd made a quick search of the rooms he came back to find Carys leaning unsteadily on the doorjamb.

  "... I suddenly feel sick," she said. "It just came over me."

  Marty supported her as her legs gave.

  "Sit down for a minute." He guided her across to a bench. There was a gun on it, sweating.

  "I'm all right," she insisted. "You go and find Papa, I'll stay here."

  "You look bloody awful."

  "Thank you," she said. "Now will you please go? I'd prefer to throw up with nobody watching, if you don't mind."

  "You sure?"

  "Go on, damn you. Leave me be. I'll be fine."

  "Lock the door after me," he stressed.

  "Yes, sir," she said, throwing him a queasy look. He left her in the steam room, and waited until he heard the bolt drawn across. It didn't completely reassure him, but it was better than nothing.

  He cautiously made his way back into the vestibule, and decided to take a quick look around the front of the house. The lawn lights were on, and if the old man were there he'd soon be picked out. That made Marty an easy target too, of course, but at least he was armed. He unlocked the front door and stepped out onto the gravel. The floodlights poured unflinching illumination down. It was whiter than sunlight, but curiously dead. He scanned the lawn to right and left. There was no sign of the old man.

  Behind him, in the hallway, Breer watched the hero stride out in search of his master. Only when he was well out of sight did the Razor-Eater slouch out of hiding and lope, bloody-handed, toward his heart's desire.

  38

  Having bolted the door Carys returned, groggily, to the bench and concentrated on controlling her mutinous system. She wasn't certain what had brought the nausea on, but she was determined to get the better of it. When she had, she'd go after Marty and help him search for Papa. The old man had been here recently, that much was apparent. That he'd left without his gun did not augur well.

  An insinuating voice stirred her from her meditation, and she looked up. There was a smudge in the steam, in front of her, a paleness projected onto the air. She squinted to try to make sense of it. It seemed to have the texture of white dots. She stood up, and-far from vanishing-the illusion strengthened. Filaments were spreading to connect one dot to the next, and she almost laughed with recognition as all at once the puzzle came clear. It was blossom she was looking at, brilliant white heads of it caught in sun or starlight. Twitched by some sourceless wind, the branches threw down flurries of petals. They seemed to graze her face, though when she put her fingers to the places there was nothing there.

  In her years of addiction to H she'd never dreamed an image that was so superficially benign and yet so charged with threat. It wasn't hers, this tree. She hadn't made it from her own head. It belonged to someone who'd been here before her: the Architect, no doubt. He'd shown this spectacle to Papa, and its echoes lingered.

  She tried to look away, around to the door, but her eyes were glued to the tree. She couldn't seem to unfix them. She had the impression that the blossom was swelling, as if more buds were coming into bloom. The blankness of the tree-its horrid purity-was filling her eyes, the whiteness congealing and fattening.

  And then, somewhere beneath these swaying, laden branches, a figure moved. A woman with burning eyes lifted her broken head in Carys' direction. Her presence brought the nausea back. Carys felt faint. This wasn't the time to lose consciousness. Not with the blossom still bursting and the woman beneath the tree moving out of hiding toward her. She had been beautiful, this one: and used to admiration. But chance had intervened. The body had been cruelly maimed, the beauty spoiled. When, finally, she emerged from hiding, Carys knew her as her own.

&nbs
p; "Mama."

  Evangeline Whitehead opened her arms, and offered her daughter an embrace she had never offered while alive. In death, had she discovered the capacity to love as well as be loved? No. Never. The open arms were a trap, Carys knew it. If she fell into them the tree, and its Maker, would have her, forever.

  Her head thundering, she forced herself to look away. Her limbs were like jelly; she wondered if she had the strength to move. Unsteadily, she craned her head toward the door. To her shock she saw that it was wide open. The bolt had been wrenched off as the door was beaten open.

  "Marty?" she said.

  "No."

  She turned again, this time to her left, and the dog-killer was standing no more than two yards from her. He had washed his hands and face of bloodstains, and he smelled strongly of perfume.

  "You're safe with me," he said.

  She glanced back at the tree. It was dissolving, its illusory life dispersed by the brute's interruption. Carys' mother, arms still outstretched, was growing thin and wretched. At the last instant before she disappeared she opened her mouth and vomited a stream of black blood toward her daughter. Then the tree and its horrors were gone. There was only the steam, and the tiles, and a man with dog's blood under his fingernails standing beside her. She'd heard nothing of his forced entry: the reverie at the tree had muted the outside world.

  "You shouted," he explained. "I heard you shout."

  She didn't remember doing so. "I want Marty," she told him.

  "No," he replied politely.

  "Where is he?" she demanded, and made a move, albeit weakly, toward the open door.

  "I said no!" He stepped in her path. He didn't need to touch her. His very proximity was sufficient to halt her. She contemplated trying to slip by him, and out into the hallway, but how far could she get before he caught her? There were two basic rules when dealing with mad dogs and psychotics. The first: don't run. The second: show no fear. When he reached out toward her she tried not to recoil.

  "I won't let anybody hurt you," he said. He ran the ball of his thumb across the back of her hand, finding a speck of sweat there, and brushing it away. His stroke was feather-light; and ice-cold.

  "Will you let me look after you, pretty?" he asked.

  She said nothing; his touch appalled her. Not for the first time tonight she wished she weren't a sensitive: she'd never felt such distress at another human's touch.

  "I would like to make you comfortable," he was saying. "Share..." He stopped, as though the words escaped him. "... your secrets."

  She looked up into his face. The muscles of his jaw fluttered as he made his proposals, nervous as an adolescent.

  "And in return," he proposed, "I'll show you my secrets. You want to see?"

  He didn't wait for an answer. His hand had plunged into the pocket of his stained jacket and was taking out a clutch of razors. Their edges glinted. It was too absurd: like a fairground sideshow, but played without the razzmatazz. This clown, smelling of sandalwood, was about to eat razors to win her love. He put out his dry tongue and laid the first blade on it. She didn't like this one bit; razors made her nervous, and always had.

  "Don't," she said.

  "It's all right," he told her, swallowing hard. "I'm the last of the tribe. See?" He opened his mouth and put out his tongue. "All gone."

  "Extraordinary," she said. It was. Revolting, but extraordinary.

  "That's not all," he said, pleased by her response.

  It was best to let him go on with this bizarre display, she reasoned. The longer he took showing her these perversities, the more chance there was of Marty coming back.

  "What else can you do?" she asked.

  He let go of her hand and started to unbuckle his belt.

  "I'll show you," he replied, unbuttoning.

  Oh, Christ, she thought, stupid, stupid, stupid. His arousal at this exhibition was absolutely plain even before he had his trousers down.

  "I'm past pain now," he explained courteously. "No pain, whatever I do to myself. The Razor-Eater feels nothing."

  He was naked beneath his trousers. "See?" he said, proudly.

  She saw. His groin was completely shaved, and the region sported an array-of self-inflicted adornments. Hooks and rings transfixing the fat of his lower belly and his genitals. His testicles bristled with needles.

  "Touch me," he invited.

  "No... thank you," she said.

  He frowned; his upper lip curled to expose teeth that in his pale flesh looked bright yellow.

  "I want you to touch me," he said, and reached for her.

  "Breer. "

  The Razor-Eater stood absolutely still. Only his eyes flickered.

  "Let her alone."

  She knew the voice; too well. It was the Architect, of course; her dreamguide.

  "I didn't hurt her," Breer mumbled. "Did I? Tell him I didn't hurt you."

  "Cover yourself up," the European said.

  Breer hoisted up his trousers like a boy caught masturbating, and moved away from Carys, throwing her a conspiratorial glance. Only now did the speaker come into the steam room. He was taller than she'd dreamed he'd be, and more doleful.

  "I'm sorry," he said. His tone was that of the perfect maitre d', apologizing for a gauche waiter.

  "She was sick," Breer said. "That's why I broke in."

  "Sick?"

  "Talking to the wall," he blustered. "Calling after her mother."

  The Architect understood the observation immediately. He looked at Carys keenly.

  "So you saw?" he said.

  "What was it?"

  "Nothing you need ever suffer again," he replied.

  "My mother was there. Evangeline."

  "Forget it all," he said. "That horror's for others, not for you." Listening to his calm voice was mesmeric. She found it difficult to recall her nightmares of nullity; his presence canceled memory.

  "I think perhaps you should come with me," he said.

  "Why?"

  "Your father's going to die, Carys."

  "Oh?" she said.

  She felt utterly removed from herself. Fears were a thing of the past in his courteous presence.

  "If you stay here, you'll only suffer with him, and there's no need for that."

  It was a seductive offer; never to live under the old man's thumb again, never to endure his kisses, that tasted so old. Carys glanced at Breer.

  "Don't be afraid of him," the Architect reassured her, laying a hand. on the back of her neck. "He is nothing and no one. You're safe with me."

  "She could run away," Breer protested, when the European had let Carys go off to her room to gather up her belongings.

  "She will never leave me," Mamoulian replied. "I mean her no harm and she knows it. I rocked her once, in these arms."

  "Naked, was she?"

  "A tiny thing: so vulnerable." His voice dropped to a near-whisper: "She deserved better than him."

  Breer said nothing; simply lolled insolently against the wall, peeling dried blood from under his nails with a razor. He was deteriorating faster than the European had anticipated. He'd hoped Breer would survive until all of this chaos was over, but knowing the old man, he'd wheedle and prevaricate, and what should have taken days would occupy weeks, by which time the Razor-Eater's condition would be poor indeed. The European felt weary. Finding and controlling a substitute for Breer would be a drain on his already depleted energies.

  Presently, Carys came downstairs.

  In some ways he regretted losing his spy in the enemy camp, but there were too many variables remaining if he didn't take her. For one, she had knowledge of him, deeper knowledge than she was perhaps aware of. She knew instinctively his terrors of the flesh; witness the way she had driven him out when she and Strauss had been together. She knew too his weariness, his dwindling faith. But there was another reason to take her. Whitehead had said that she was his only comfort. If they took her now the pilgrim would be alone, and that would be agony. Mamoulian trusted it would pro
ve unendurable.

  39

  After searching as much of the grounds as was lit by the floodlights, and finding no sign of Whitehead, Marty went back upstairs. It was time to break Whitehead's commandment, and look for the old man in forbidden territory. The door to the room at the end of the top corridor, beyond Carys' and Whitehead's bedrooms, was closed. Heart in mouth, Marty approached, and tapped on it.

  "Sir?"

  At first there was no sound from within. Then came Whitehead's voice; vague, as if woken from sleep: "Who is it?"

  "Strauss, sir."

  "Come in."

  Marty pushed the door gently and it swung open.

  When he had imagined the interior of this room it had always been a treasure house. But the truth was quite the reverse. The room was Spartan: its white walls and its spare furnishings a chilly spectacle. It did boast one treasure. An altarpiece stood against one of the bare walls, its richness quite out of place in such an austere setting. Its central panel was a crucifixion of sublime sadism; all gold and blood.

  Its owner sat, dressed in an opulent dressing gown, at the far end of the room, behind a large table. He looked at Marty with neither welcome nor accusation on his face, his body slumped in the chair like a sack.

  "Don't stand in the doorway, man. Come in."

  Marty closed the door behind him.

  "I know what you told me, sir, about never coming up here. But I was afraid something had happened to you."

  "I'm alive," Whitehead said, spreading his hands. "All's well."

  "The dogs-"

  "-are dead. I know. Sit."

  He gestured to the empty chair opposite him across the table.

  "Shouldn't I call the police?"

  "There's no need."

  "They could still be on the premises."

  Whitehead shook his head. "They've gone. Sit down, Martin. Pour yourself a glass of wine. You look as if you've been running hard."

  Marty pulled out the chair that had been neatly placed under the table and sat down. The unadorned bulb that burned in the middle of the room threw an unflattering light on everything. Heavy shadows, ghastly highlights: a ghost show.