Billy Purgatory: I am the Devil Bird

by Jesse James Freeman

  “Don't try and turn yourself into a Shakespeare so late in our war against one another.” He disgusted Billy all of the sudden. “Don't try and re-play your hand. Because if this is about some bullshit lie that you were tough on me because I reminded you of yourself when you were a wee scrub it's not going to work. Just because you're dying doesn't take back that you were heartless. Doesn't take back that you're a cold bastard.”

  The Captain laughed. “Of course I'm all those things. You were never supposed to run into the likes of me or the crooked snakes up on that deck. This isn't to make things right between us before I sail off for good. I don't give a damn if you like me, because I sure don't like you.”

  “Good. So what do you want to tell me before I'm rid of you for good?”

  “Not tell,” said the Captain. “Ask.”

  “So ask.”

  He leaned forward; it must have been a painful exertion. He hadn't been out of his foul nest of a bed in a week. “What's so enticing to you, Billy Purgatory, about making deals with devils?”

  “You're no devil.” Billy didn't like the question and hated the Captain even more for asking it. “You're just a fool who's realized he's run out of time.”

  “My time is close. Maybe it's me that should have made that deal, but I was always too afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That time would keep playing itself out like it always has for me for forever. My wheel of fortune is turned by a desperate wave.”

  Billy started to stand, but the Captain grabbed his arm and pointed with his fingers once more below the bed.

  “You make the deal. You're the one of us who got something to gain out of it. You need them.”

  Billy wanted to be rid of him, “What's got you so convinced that I wouldn't trade places with you now if I could and let it all end? That I care anything about a new ocean full of endless grey mornings? Same old rotten company and ratty food.”

  The Captain knew that Billy wasn't suicidal, not on purpose anyway. “You need it. You'll feast on it. You'll see.”

  Billy pulled again, and the Captain let go. He had no more strength to press on Billy's wrist. His yellowed fingers seemed to leave a rash where they had pressed so tightly at last grasp, like the Devil's watchband.

  Billy decided to reach under the bunk.

  “I know you ain't here by chance, boy. You've run all your life but you ain't running no more. You're after something and I know just what it is.”

  Billy's cold fingertips found an equally cold lockbox under the bunk.

  “So what is it, Captain? What do you think I want?”

  “You want to know about them and what I done for 'em.”

  Billy slid the box out, scratching the plank floor. “Yeah, who's them?”

  “The Five, boy. I seen it in your eyes the first day you come on board. Someone talked and you know about them.”

  “They're just a myth.”

  The Captain groaned and let his last breath slip, a smile on his lips. The key to the lockbox fell to the floor from his five crippled fingers.

  II

  When the crew realized the Captain was gone, there was of course a raging episode of fighting, drunken confusion and desperate tearing of flesh from bone. Which dog would now be king? Billy heard all of this take place as the upper deck was dripped of snowflake and blood drop and sweat. He worked quietly below until, like a movement of sour music, the revelation took hold of the crew all at once.

  Many footfalls tore onto the planks that made path into the hold. Down they ran, because the only thing more entertaining to them now than taking control of the true corpse of the Captain, his ship, was in finally finishing off the unsure youth who they'd been forced to pick up and stow, Billy Purgatory, who the Captain had protected from them in a twisted way. They'd made him strong; all sensed this together, and they now swarmed with hive mind to cast him over the side because sport and fate demanded it. Billy himself had begged for it, by not allowing himself to change as they had.

  His walking through this hell of his own volition was abomination to them all. It wasn't fair that he hadn't given up hope. That he still had heart.

  If the sailors couldn't shrivel it, they'd cut it out.

  But they froze when they saw him bathed golden in torchlight below. His face would be called beautiful by old masters, as if it were to be chiseled soon from a marble block. Beautiful were it not for the scar that ran diagonally from left temple over right cheek. The frank reminder that there is no real beauty in this world, only the ghost of it, cast back to them now in angry firelight.

  Billy wasn't one for speeches, even now that one was near begged for. He'd pulled the old cannon out of its berth and lovingly cleaned and bored it. He had packed it with dry powder and three stone shot. Had it pointed at them all, and towards the bow of the ship. All of the threads meticulously woven together by the Captain, and the ship and these dangerous shades of men would soon be cut lose to fly into the wind and surf.

  The sailors were not naive enough to think they could fly very far.

  They all turned to run, trying to climb over one another, cutting themselves with their own knives and cleavers and hooks.

  Billy let the cannon give the speech.

  The water and ice rushed in. Billy had already tossed the life raft he would swim to off the ship. Floating with it was his green bag with all of his treasures waiting for him.

  Billy held in his hand the only item that had been in the Captain's lock box, the cover of an old book. The pages seemed long ago ripped from it and were surely scattered and lost. On the reverse of the intricate leather binding was a map of the North Atlantic, a special place which might still exist was indicated on it and this place would surely be close.

  And as Billy Purgatory chose not to drown and instead swim towards a blinking light attached to an inflatable life raft, he would begin the journey towards an island drawn inside a book cover.

  Printed over the drawing of the island was a number, 5.

  III

  Billy had walked across the island for what seemed like days, but amounted to little more than an hour. He knew he had to go to the other side of the mostly flat expanse because he had been able to see the stone since the first rays of light had crossed the horizon line. There seemed only one thing of note on this island: the vast black stone that sat at the opposite shore from where Billy had landed in his raft.

  It was indicated by a black circle on the book cover map he had taken from the Captain's things.

  “I made runs to that Black Stone Island. I brung them things.”

  The stone itself was a dome rock, something between a hill and a mountain, the dark eyeball of the planet. Nature hadn't put it there; it was too precise a thing - too intimidating a thing. It didn't belong, like a tick that had latched itself to creation and refused to let go.

  Billy walked into a little camp at the base of the black stone abomination. It was here he came face to face with an unlikely steward of a man.

  The man at the island camp was very tall and he had long hair he kept tied in a straight tight run down his back trailing to the climbing belt around his waist. His eyes were glacier, blue and unmoving, staring out to the sea and far past the concerns of the present world. Up his left arm were tattoos of highly detailed maps of lands that Billy Purgatory had never seen or imagined.

  The tattoo near the right shoulder was the colorful art of the Hammer and Sickle of the Soviet States. Just above this piece of history was inked a gold rimmed sun which ringed the drawing of one of the symbols on the scabbard of Emelia Purgatory's supposedly stolen sword.

  The Broom.

  This man, Broom, stood firmly in sturdy climbing boots laced tight and wore jeans. The white shirt was all that protected him from the frigid wind coming off the beach just below the camp. His fingers were wrapped in rope-worn leather gloves, and hanging off his climbing belt were very precise tools meant for the shaping and polishing of stone.

  Th
e blonde giant held a climber's hammer. Billy held the Captain's forty-five pistol.

  “This is not the first time a man has held a gun to my face,” he said to Billy, with only the slightest hint of residual Cold War accent.

  “I want to know where to find the demon that took my girlfriend.” Billy was trying his best to stare the big man down, which wasn't easy considering the angle he had to raise his neck to look up at the Russian.

  There was a pause and then a deep laugh. “Demon? There are no demons, preposterous little man.”

  “Demon, zombie, whatever you want to call it.” In the movies this was the point where the hero cocked the hammer. On this island, Billy had cocked the hammer an hour ago.

  “Zombie is more fitting,” came the Russian, who lowered his climber's hammer in response to Billy taking better aim. “The animation of the dead can be a useful tool, if done correctly. If such a thing ate your love…”

  “That's what I called it when I was a kid. Not any zombie though, I'm looking for a specific one.” Billy remained serious. “The one who moves through time.”

  Broom showed a displeased scowl at the narrowing of the search parameters. “So it meddles in our affairs now?”

  “What do you know about the Time Zombie, Russian?”

  “I know it's not completely a zombie.”

  “Then what kind of monster is it?” Billy was falling out of annoyance and was intrigued that he was finally talking to someone who seemed to know something useful. Someone who understood terror.

  “The same kind of monster we all are,” came the Russian, letting his hammer fall into the sand. “One that began life as a man.”

  “Come,” said Broom. “Perhaps we can trade stories of the creature, but first we eat.”

  IV

  Billy sat with the Russian at his table under the open tent. Billy ate the Russian's food and listened as he finished the story of the Time Zombie.

  “So, Billy Purgatory, I have told you what you asked and now you will tell me what I ask in trade. Where is the sword which goes in that scabbard you carry?”

  “My mother has the sword.”

  Broom seemed to consider this while looking into the blue sky above. “And where is she?”

  “I've been looking for her my whole life. Nobody knows. Or maybe nobody'll give me a straight answer.”

  “What if I told you that I can find her for you?”

  Billy slid the empty plate away from him. “I would say find her.”

  The Russian raised a finger into the air. “There is, of course, a price.”

  “There always is.”

  Broom walked to the base of the black polished mountain of stone and took hold of one of the dangling ropes and began to climb up it. Broom continued to question Billy as he climbed. “Tell me about that scar across your face, Billy Purgatory.”

  “I've always had it.”

  “You didn't spring from the womb with such a mark. It was gifted you somehow.”

  Billy stood at the base of the stone watching Broom climb, now far above his head. “The Goddess told me that the Satanic Five gave it to me when I was a baby.”

  Broom stopped just long enough to call down to Billy, “You have no idea what that means do you?”

  “I know they're evil and I know you're one of them. That you tried to snatch me but my mother saved me from you, or one of your gang. That you got me right here before Mom saved me.” Billy made a slicing noise as his finger trailed across the scar that sliced his face into diagonal halves.

  Broom pulled himself up higher. “There are many names for things. The only one that's constant for that thing is The Five.” Broom let go a slight laugh as he continued up. “The Satanic part was tacked on as a scare tactic. Whatever the relevant boogie-man of the day happens to be.”

  Broom stopped his movement along the immense dark stone he hung from, and his words stopped with his motion, if only briefly while he used a brush to work a particular section of stone clean and began to trace the stone's scars with his finger as he read.

  “What is this big rock candy mountain, anyhow?” Billy yelled up to the Russian. “What's the big secret and how is it gonna let you know where my mother is?”

  Broom didn't seem interested in answering.

  “What are you, a fortune teller? Because I already tried that and they never told me anything about my mom.”

  Broom lowered his hand Billy's direction from his place high up the stone. Billy decided to shut up for once and listen and he found himself rewarded with answers.

  “Here you are, Billy Purgatory, the spiral of your life. Your very being etched…”

  Billy didn't care about his spiral. “Do you see her?”

  “Da, I know where she is, and where the sword that belongs to Moon is. So simple, I should not have had to even read the stone.” Broom pushed off the rock and began slow descent towards the ground and the waiting Billy Purgatory.

  Billy wasn't into shutting up anymore. “Where is she?”

  “More important, Billy Purgatory, is what she did. Your mother stole Moon's sword, the property of The Five. For her own selfish ends so that she could attempt to appease the universe's anger for a horrible mistake that she had made.”

  Billy didn't like where any of this was going and began to retrace his steps backwards in the island sand.

  “What mistake?”

  Broom looked down from his place, halfway up the hill of black polished stone. “You know the mistake.”

  “No, I don't know the mistake…”

  “Of course you do. You've known it for a long time now, I'm sure. You just haven't wanted to admit to yourself the truths written on my black stone.” Broom neared the ground and Billy watched him slip down the rock like a spider.

  “I don't know what you're talking about, Ruskie.”

  Broom was all smiles. “It was your mother that cut your face.”

  Billy reached for the part of the scar just above his nose, and he fell backwards, stumbling over some of Broom's climbing gear at the border of the camp. Billy fell into the sand. He felt nothing but cold on this island of the black stone eyeball. Broom's feet touched the ground, and Billy pulled himself further from the stone like a crab along a beach and he grabbed a palm tree and started to pull himself up from the ground.

  Billy's legs were shaking as he struggled to stand on them, and his eyes narrowed and found the Russian's gaze once more. “You're a liar.”

  “So, you still think you'd like to find her?” Broom was all smiles. He showed he was very much enjoying this. He patted the base of the stone with his big gloved hand with pride. He made no pretense of trying to hide how amused the terrible story his big rock had revealed was making him. He was proud like he'd never gotten to ruin anyone's day with it ever before and was thankful that Billy had washed up on his island just so his true evil nature could be revealed in the song of ill tidings sung from the black stone.

  “She didn't do this to me.” Billy found the strength to somehow stand as tall as he could muster again. “I'm her son.”

  “Her offspring perhaps, but you are a mistake she made nonetheless. What a sad little thing you are, poor boy who isn't supposed to exist. The pact the old gods have with the new was broken by your birth. There is to be no more magic in this world, and you break that law quite well, don't you? It's an oddity that we hadn't discovered you yet, Billy Purgatory.”

  Broom bent at his knees and retrieved his climbing hammer from the sand. “It would be easy for me, now that I know you run about the world crying for your mother, to climb back up that stone and with a few tiny scratches of this hammer wipe you out of existence. Just like all the other mystical mumbo-jumbo that no longer exists. I can make scars too, Billy, yet my scars do more than ugly up pretty faces. My scars wipe the slate clean.”

  The ten steps Billy stood from his bag and the Captain's rusty revolver on Broom's dining table were much too far, and as the Russian let his climbing belt fall and began his advanc
e, he was far too close.

  “I should let you run, Billy Purgatory,” Broom teased. “Let you run to Mama so she can finish the job.”

  Broom's thrown climbing hammer slammed into Billy's abdomen and the wind left his lungs and he struggled not to fall. “But I haven't killed anyone since the Inquisition, and I miss getting my hands dirty.”

  When Billy looked up from the climbing hammer at his feet, Broom was already standing before him. Billy had no time or energy to react as the left hook he knew was coming sent Billy into the air and landing on his back.

  The Russian was heavy; he was near seven feet of muscle and measured hatred and his fists took turns slamming into Billy's face as Billy was pinned beneath him. Billy was staring into the noonday sun, high above them both, casting its rays and making a black rock shadow out into the sea.

  All Billy could do was let Ra's light burn out his eyes and think about what Broom had said to him about his mother. Emelia had cut open her own son's face and hadn't been able to finish the job that Broom had so graciously offered to take up.

  Billy Purgatory wasn't any mother's son: he was a sacrifice that had gone wrong. Billy was truly little more than distracted despair as he was being beaten to death.

  Billy's face was a blood stained mess and his right eye was swelling shut when he realized that Broom had stopped hitting him. His one good eye was near blind from the sun and he blinked when the calm, salt-laced island air changed. Broom was still over him and had his climbing hammer in his left hand and Billy was sure in that instant that Broom's aim would be true and the hammer was seconds away from swinging down and cracking open Billy's skull.

  Billy was very sure of this. All his senses pointed towards his imminent demise. Everything about him was doom, except Billy's nose.

  The air seeping into his bleeding nostrils was not what his brain told him should be smells associated with islands.

  Billy smiled from a mouth that seeped blood because he smelled death - but not his own death.

  “Laughing fool…” Broom then smelled it too, rotting, roasted death, and Billy saw the outline of the dark figure standing behind Broom.