I blink at his back as he shuffles away, trying to decode his real message. His bald head transforms into that of an enormous reptile, greenish-brown and scaly, frills fanning out from his cheeks. I shake my head and it’s gone, he’s gone. I ignore the hallucination, blaming it on my migraine, and again wonder at Sterling’s loss of enthusiasm, his shunning of that all-important tradition of upholding a generations-old family business.
Four grabs my left forearm with his freshly licked fingers and squints at the striped face of my TAG Heuer Aquaracer. He drops my arm and hurries away from me, calling over his shoulder, “Hey, man, come on, shit, I’m gonna be late for work.”
“Again,” I add, under my breath, grabbing my Calvin Klein suit jacket from the back of my high-backed chair. “I could cut your throat and you’d never have to worry about it again,” I say a bit louder. I don’t think he hears me. Too bad.
I frequently accompany Four’s tours, when I am not engaged in my own fanciful pursuits of science and financial success. I lend the walks an extra air of creepiness. I am painfully aware that I look just as one would expect an undertaker to look— pale, gaunt, tall, bleak. Carrying such a look is a personal tragedy, but I am happy that my sinister appearance at least benefits my friend since it does fuck-all for me.
We lope through the humidity toward the big fountain in the center of Forsyth Park, smoking and joking. I let Four’s stupid anecdotes distance my mind from Uncle Sterling’s sinking ship comment. Perhaps Sterling is growing senile. A touch of the old Alzheimer’s. Great, I’ll have to find a way to keep him and Aunt Billie in The Home.
Perhaps he could take a tumble down the great staircase in the front of the parlor.
A great depression looms somewhere just above my throbbing head, hanging in the cloud of stinking cigarette smoke.
A sizeable crowd has already gathered by the park’s fountain for Four’s theatrical ghost tour, his first of the night. He takes one last puff of his cigarette and throws it into the grass. He puts a finger to his lips, signaling me to hush as he crouches down, sneaking toward a waist-level row of azaleas. About twenty sweaty tourists line the benches, videotaping the statues spitting in the fountain or the Spanish moss dripping from the live oaks that loom overhead, as we creep up behind them. A child is the first to notice Four lurking in the bushes. She looks to be about ten years of age, but when she spots Four peeking through the foliage, she moves close to her portly father and tugs on his chubby arm like a five-year-old. The father catches sight of me and Four, glances around, and begins videotaping us. Others take note and Four and I step forward, players taking the stage.
“Good evening, all y’all,” Four drawls, exaggerating his native accent, leering at the group with red corn syrup leaking down his chin, dripping on his dirty white lace-frilled shirt. People smile, disarmed by the disturbing appearance his face and costume project in the evening gloom, and snap pictures. No one ventures too close, however. Good thing— that Cool Ranch Dorito breath is horrid. I have been told that Tom’s of Maine toothpaste will banish even a zombie’s flesh-breath; I’ll have to remember to mention that to Four later on.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Savannah, the Hostess City, a city steeped in horror— slavery, war, voodoo, pirates, secret government experiments, and, of course, the restless spirits flowing from each and every one of those mortal terrors.” Four gazes around the wary group. Bug-eyed and drooling red in the greenish glow of the fountain, he breathes hard with enthusiasm toward his perspiring charges. “Right now, we are standing in Forsyth Park— stunning, gorgeous, a living portrait of Southern grace and charm. Enjoy it while you can. In a moment, we will be heading below this beautiful bit of Heaven on Earth, scouring the recently reinforced tunnel system that was originally used to move the bodies of yellow fever victims around the city without causing widespread panic.”
An old lady with a head full of curly white hair sneezes.
“Bless you,” Four says.
She blows her nose with a wild honk.
“You see, the number of fatalities from the epidemic was absolutely overwhelming. City officials decided it would be bad for morale among the shrinking pool of healthy citizens to watch an alarming number of corpses being shuttled around town on surface streets. Not to mention the possibility of actually spreading disease.” He peers around the rough circle again, drinking in the slight disgust on the faces of all present, one corner of his mouth twitching from his nervous tic.
What he’d said regarding the tunnels is held to be true by some local historians. The newly dead were allegedly shuttled from hospital to funeral parlor to cemetery via these passageways. Other historians maintain that the subterranean tunnel system was used as storage for the corpses, housing them as funeral parlors struggled to satisfy the increasing demand for services that the malaria epidemic had brought. Rotting cadavers would have lined the walls, filling the miles of underground halls, stacked up like so many fish at the bottom of a rowboat, as they waited their turn to be addressed by the over-worked morticians. I could only dream of such a boon. For a time, I thought perhaps I could restart the yellow fever decimation, but developing a treatment-resistant strain of malaria seemed near impossible with my rudimentary knowledge of viruses.
Regarding the use of the tunnels, still other groups of historians insist they were used by local dignitaries who did not want to be exposed to the airborne viruses that polluted the air above ground. I find that as likely a scenario as any, but it is a bit boring for a ghost tour, if I do say so myself. The most humorous rumor I’d heard pertained to the current employment of the passages. A ghost hunting television show speculated that the ghosts now use the tunnels to make their way from location to location without being spotted by the living. A sort of ghost subway, if you will.
“Please, everyone, bow your heads and observe a moment of silence with me before we venture forth into Savannah’s pitch dark past.”
I watch everyone look at the brick-lined concrete walk beneath their feet. A few cast furtive sideways glances at me, at Four, and at each other. Pudgy ring-studded hands stifle rogue giggles. I read the broken capillaries in one round man’s orange-peel nose; the tiny broken vessels speak of many nights at the local tavern and unresolved cardiac troubles. He coughs and catches me staring. I look up at the Spanish moss, feeling his eyes on me.
“O, yay, brave travelers,” Four says, “follow me. Our first stop will be the new visitor’s center, right over yonder.” He points to a squat concrete structure in the near distance.
“Extreme Ghost Tours,” Four says as we come to a stop outside a large pad-locked steel back door, painted the same dull grayish white of the structure, “is the only tour in the city allowed the privilege of fully exploring the tunnels.” He produces a large ball of keys from his jacket pocket, adjusts the hump on his back to laughs from the crowd, and holds up an old-fashioned skeleton key for all to see.
“This key, my friends, will grant us a journey into what is the most haunted space in the entire country.” He leers into anxious faces and tiny video cameras, then turns to unlock the door. “There is no light, of course, so my friend there will grant several of you flashlights as you pass.” He hands me his grungy leather backpack after grabbing a light for himself and heading down the steep staircase. “Watch your step now, people, or you’ll be finding your final resting place right in what was once called ‘The Dead House.’” He lets out a deep deranged chuckle, which, to me, seems a bit over-the-top.
Apprehensive faces glance up into my own expressionless mask as I distribute the flashlights. I restrain myself from backhanding an old lady with glasses on a rhinestone-studded chain as she slips past. I keep a torch for myself and pull the heavy metal door shut behind me as I mount the new concrete steps. People’s laughs and ‘oohs’ echo their way down into the old morgue, once purportedly used by the old Candler Hospital. The room itself is ten-by-twelve feet, with an eight foot high ceiling, and damp. It is a tight squeeze for ev
eryone to fit. A small group spills into the mouth of the tunnel on the far side.
“This is The Dead House,” Four says from the middle of the room, leaning against a stone slab. His flashlight illuminates his face from beneath his chin, accentuating the charcoal smudges filling the hollows around his eyes. His head looks like a fat skull, dripping blood from the mouth, topped with a flat Confederate soldier’s hat. “Excavated in the late 1800s, and most likely designed by a man named John F. Daly, this room was used as a morgue. The slab I’m resting on here, can anyone guess what it was used for?”
People look at each other in the irregular beams cast from the dozen or so flashlights. One brave soul, the man with the orange-peel roadmap nose, speaks with a heavy Southern accent: “Uh, was it one of them autopsy tables?”
Four snaps his head in the man’s direction and cackles. “Hot damn, yeah, it is one of them autopsy tables. You are exactly right, sir.” The man, standing about two feet from Four, recoils, probably from the horrendous Dorito breath.
A middle-aged woman standing next to what I surmise to be her teenage son raises her hand, as if she is in school. Four thrusts his shining red-striped chin in her direction. “Yes, my lady?”
“What’s that, in the ceiling?” Everyone looks up at a luminous gray square cut in the center of the concrete above. It always reminds me of a misshapen eye, clouded over by an aggressive cataract.
“That is a skylight, of course,” Four says. “As you can imagine, light was quite a problem down here. If you look on the walls, you’ll see some really old remnants of what were crude light fixtures.” He points his flashlight at a pair of rusty pipe ends jutting out from a point set high in the wall. “You will also notice— excuse me,” he squeezes past a young couple, bisecting them on his way across the chamber, “there’s a sink down here, for easy clean-up.”
There is indeed. Rusted metal shows through craters in its porcelain skin.
I’d been in the tunnel with Four on too many occasions to count, mostly on tours, but sometimes we just sit and drink, waiting for some otherworldly presence to approach us. You know, I could never figure out who he’d gotten the key from, and he wouldn’t tell me, not that it matters. I know the Mercers have their ways.
I wish I could find a room like this, someplace tourists can’t go.
‘The Dead House’ would be the perfect setting for my metastasizing plan.
Chapter 6 – Caleb
“You know, Doc Martens are made from leather, you total PETA poseur,” Four says, winking, as Scarlet walks up to us outside Vinnie Van GoGo’s, swinging her giant black vinyl portfolio onto the too-small scarred wooden table. Four grabs his sweet tea just before it’s knocked into his lap by the flying art case.
Her hair is no longer flowing red-streaked raven. It is now the pale yellow of a scorching sun and is cropped in a severe asymmetrical style. A longish hot pink stripe falls over her right eye. I suppress an urge to tuck that lone lock behind her delicate multi-studded ear. A chill crawls up my sweaty spine and my arms break out in gooseflesh. She is beautiful, ethereal.
“Eat. My. Viscera,” flows in a molten glut from her perfect black matte lips. She flashes a playful glare in Four’s direction. I seethe with envy, wondering, as always, if he harbors some secret love or lust for her. Or her for him.
I imagine strangling them both, first making Four watch me wind her harlot’s fishnet stockings around her fish-belly neck and choke the soul out of her.
But then, a ray of complete euphoria banishes all thought from my head: Scarlet’s heavily black-lined cornflower eyes alight on my own flushed face. I still want her, the malicious bitch. The corner of her mouth ticks upward in a napalm smirk that coats and scalds my entrails. “Hey,” she says, folding herself onto a wrought iron chair next to mine, stowing her portfolio on the sidewalk beside her pale netted leg.
I do not trust myself to speak. My mouth is full of ice, numbing my tongue. I give her a wink and a nod and hope it doesn’t come across as ridiculous as it feels. I am always so awkward around her. I am indeed awkward around everyone, but she makes me feel like a stork trapped in a teenager’s body, a mass murderer imprisoned in the body of a priest.
“Well, kids,” Four says, standing and straightening his fake hump, “I’d love to stay and converse, but some of us have work to do.” He shoots a scathing smirk at Scarlet. His tour has always been more popular than hers, and he never lets her forget it.
I want to punch him in the mouth, feel the pulp of his lips mash against his crooked teeth.
“Enjoy your romantic lunch, chumps.” With that, Four plugs in his plastic vampire teeth and staggers toward his little ‘Extreme Ghost Tours’ platform a block down the brick walk. Curious looks slide off him from all sides as he cuts a wake through the flood of tourists. A gorgeous young woman stops to watch him, lowering her sunglasses, biting her lower lip. Four doesn’t even notice; he’s used to the attention. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what these women see in him.
Scarlet, unaffected, pulls a cigarette from her pack of Marlboro Lights and hangs it on her full bottom lip. I swat at my jacket pockets, feeling for my lighter. I locate it before she is able to sift through the contents of her enormous purse in search of her own black Bic. I light her cigarette. She thanks me by blowing a thick cloud of yellow-tinged smoke directly into my eyes. It burns, of course, but worse than that, it obscures the image of her angelic face for a brief moment. She slumps back in her chair and glances around, preoccupied.
“I am so beyond stressed right now,” she says in her New Jersey accent, waving the waiter over, ordering a green tea. “I have a project due in three days and I have to work every fucking night. Assuming I can dig up some customers, of course.” She takes another drag from her cigarette. “Unbelievable.”
Scarlet is all about drama. I could watch her theatrics forever.
She works every night of the week, except for Wednesdays and the rare occasion she is unable to entice two or more fat tourists to slink around town with her, talking about ghosts and ghouls. Unlike many of the privileged young adults studying at SCAD, she needs the money to pay her exorbitant tuition. Instead of pursuing a degree close to home, at Drexel University’s Nesbitt School of Design, where she’d won a full scholarship, she’d followed her high school sweetheart to the Hostess City, where she’d gotten thirteen piercings, six tattoos, and changed her name from Amy to Scarlet. She had officially severed all ties with her family when she came to Savannah over three years ago.
Her high school sweetheart dumped her for a lacrosse player from Maryland.
But, she is not bitter.
“I hate this fucking place.”
I clear my throat and look at my untouched slice of mushroom pizza. Orange grease pools on top of the cheese, reflecting sparkles of midday sunlight. I can’t understand how anyone could hate this part of the world.
“I mean,” she says, “it’s so, like... boring, you know?” She exhales a cloud of toxins. “Do you ever miss Pittsburgh? I mean, Pittsburgh is gross, you know, like Midwestern, but, too bad you had to come back to this backwoods shithole, man.” She drops her cigarette and crushes it under her boot heel. I can see the blackheads through the pavement of make-up smothering her nose. My sigh floats away unnoticed.
“Well,” I say, leaning toward her over the table, breathing in her nicotine-tinged scent, “I happen to like it here.” An intoxicated smile crawls across my lips. “Look around you. See how crowded it is? You know how many tourists escape to our fair city every year. Savannah is a temptress. She’s steeped in history. She’s gorgeous, and she’s haunted.” I stare into her bloodshot blue eyes, telling myself she’s playing hard to get, trying to change her mind by sending hot needles of persuasion into her pupils.
“Kind of like you,” I say, dropping my eyes to the low-cut low-rent lacey V of her neckline, the white tops of her breasts are melted crème fraîche in the shadow of the awning. My heart ricochets around my ribcage, for
cing all the air from my shrunken smoker’s lungs. Gorgeous and haunted, both are good things. I’d known Scarlet for nearly two years, and although I’d worshipped her since the day we met, this is the first time I’ve ever said anything even remotely romantic. It is exhilarating. Even though she doesn’t reply, wears a dour expression, I want to jump up on my chair and whoop and holler.
I’d probably fall and injure myself, which would only magnify my foolishness, so I remain seated.
I risk leaning a fraction of a millimeter closer to her.
She smells of smoke and body odor. I wonder how often she bathes. Not often enough for this climate. But, her blue marble eyes find mine once more and I shudder. My heart stops. She drives me mad. Her flaws only make me want her more. A vivid fantasy blows through my head. One of knocking her from her chair, pinning her down, and ravaging her in front of all the passing tourists.
“Would you... would you go out to dinner with me?” I blurt.
Understand, I do not converse with women much. Just Scarlet. And customers, of course. I’ve never been in love with anyone. I have had a dozen or so crushes, but nothing ever came of them. I never really felt anything more than a passing lust for anyone. Not until I met Scarlet. And I’d never, ever had the nerve to act on that love until now.
Never in all eternity do I expect my feelings to be returned.
And they aren’t.
Scarlet’s eyes flick up to a passing waiter. “Like a date, you mean?” She laughs that musical chuckle I cherish and I want to vomit. Or punch her in the flabby pierced face.
“Well, I don’t have much free time, you know,” she says.
Our waiter finally brings her tea and the spell is broken, just like that. My spell, in which she is not really involved anyway. She’s thinking about getting off with Four. I know she is. I can hear her thoughts.
Revival House Page 4
