“Is that what happened to you? Are you one of the ones who looked for him?”
“No, he… found me.”
“How did he – “
“No,” she said sternly. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
We turned away from each other, staring out into the wastes with an awkward silence.
Then something happened. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Something rippled through me. Emily and I locked eyes. She gave me a weak but amused smile.
In a moment, the house started rumbling and straining. Was it an earthquake? I grabbed the railing to steady myself. Emily did the same.
“This is one of the few enjoyable parts of being here,” she said with a wan smile.
The rumbling continued as I struggled to keep to my feet. With a strange sense of vertigo, I noticed that the ground was falling away. In a moment I realized that the ground wasn’t moving, the house was rising up into the air. It slowly rose until it was twenty feet in the air. I grabbed the railing and looked down, craning my neck to see under the house.
I didn't believe it at first, despite everything I've seen in my life. Yet I was looking right at it, so who was I to not believe? There were two long legs sprouting from the house. They were thin animal legs, with two clawed feet clutching the ground. Once the house was at its full height, the legs took a step forward, then another, beginning to move at a good pace.
“Huh, chicken legs,” I said, mostly to myself.
I looked out into the wasteland as the house charged forward, feeling the wind in my face. I kind of understood what dogs felt like when they stuck their heads out of cars. But in my case, it was a chicken-powered house that I rode in. I liked the wind in my face, the sense of movement. Sure, the odd piece of dirt got in my eyes, but it was nice. I bet I would love it with goggles. I could climb the house and stand at its tallest point. Holding onto the lightning rod, I would lean into the wind, goggles on, my scarf trailing behind me. That would be my style with my own chicken-powered house.
I watched for some idea of where we were moving, but it all looked the same. The house ran for miles. We passed many dunes and the broken earth was endless. Occasionally there was a dead tree or bones of some animal. I’m not sure how anybody navigated in this. Just where exactly was I? I didn't remember hearing that Texas or New Mexico were this desolate. I had heard people complain there was nothing in them, but this went beyond such flip complaints.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Emily shrugged. “He’s the only one that can make sense of this place.”
“This place? America?”
She slowly shook her head as her eyes revealed disappointment. “We’re not in America. Or rather, not the America you’re thinking of. I’ve never seen a map, but he might have one. I’ve only been in his room once, but it’s full of strange things. All his secrets are in that room. I can’t even get inside even though I’m…” she trailed off and then caught herself. “Resourceful. Even though I’m resourceful, I can’t get in.”
“So he just walks around the wasteland in this house?”
“He’s got plans,” she said. “He’d say ‘wheels within wheels’ or some such thing. Despite how empty this place looks, there seem to be things here he wants. As well as enemies. He’s always at war with someone. It’s all in pursuit of power. That’s all he’s ever cared about.”
“Power? To what end?”
“Power is the end. Power leads to more power.”
“That’s somehow sad to me,” I said. “Power seems like it’d be cool, but it’s about what you can use it to do. I don’t think I’d want power to sit in a house in the middle of nowhere and chase more power. I’d want to go live large or something. Go spend all that power in Vegas and have a lot of fun or something like that.”
She gave something akin to a muffled chuckle. “I’d love to see his face when he heard such an idea. It would probably be his version of the Emperor having no pants.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you laugh," I said.
Her expression instantly dropped and she looked away. She waited a few moments before saying anything. “I’ll say that precisely because you don’t want power is why you need to leave here immediately. Power and control are his hooks. If he finds he can’t use you like that, you won’t last here long.”
“Can he really do that? You make it sound like he can just murder people and get away with it. Are there bodies stacked in the basement? Err, in the chicken legs?”
Her face was glum as she answered. “Out here, the only law is the law you bring with you. And while we’re in his house under his will, it’s his law. Don’t delude yourself. He can do anything he wants to you here.”
“That’s not encouraging…”
“No, it’s not. That's what I've been trying to tell you. It’s also why you must leave.” She then cocked her head. There was a definite reduction in the volume of the singing. “He’s finishing up. I need to go back before he notices I’m gone. Please, leave while you can.”
I gave a shrugging nod as she disappeared around the back of the house. I looked down and noticed that the legs were walking slower. I thought about what she said. This did seem an odd place and I didn’t trust the old man. I knew that I should leave, but where would I go? That was the problem. I had nearly died out there, I wasn't looking forward to doing that again. I needed a plan.
And what about Emily? I needed to bring her with me. She seemed okay and the old man sounded controlling, if not outright abusive. It was possible she was lying to me, but with what I had seen so far, these were at worst exaggerations, but not outright lies. There was something true in them. And even if partially true, she needed to get the hell out of the house.
There was of course a bigger question: would the old man even let me leave?
I went to bed after the house stopped moving. It lowered itself in a stretch of wasteland that looked very much like the last place it had sat. Had we really gone anywhere? Was this place all the same? How could the old man tell we’re in the right place?
When I woke up the sun was already going down. Days seemed very short in this place and nights seemed endless. I had no real way to time them, since there was not a single clock in the house. I had no watch or phone. The only other way to keep time was to count in my head, and I didn’t care that much. This left the passage of time so subjective amongst the other weirdness going on.
“We go into the Dark again tomorrow night.”
It was the old man’s casual declaration over dinner. We sat at the old table acting somewhat civilized with white plates and cheap silverware. It was just him and I; as far as I knew, he was still unaware that I knew about Emily. Our dinner was the roasted meat of a bird. It seemed somewhat like chicken, somewhat like quail, yet neither. After looking at the bones on both our plates, I suspected it was no bird that I had ever seen or heard of. I hoped it was actually a bird. At that moment I decided to stop thinking too much about it, in case I found myself unable to finish dinner.
“Why are we going back in there?” I asked.
“Unfinished business,” he said. “I finally have my opportunity to strike at the one that marked you.”
“I mean, why are we going back in? I’m not really worried about him anymore. I can sit this one out.”
His face twisted into a dark glare. “While you are in my house, you follow my commands.”
“Sure, Dad, but I was kind of interested in leaving at some point anyway.”
“Your debt is still unpaid.”
“When will it be paid? I appreciate you saved my life, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but how much is enough? You keep mentioning things I have to do, but not telling me until the day before what I need to do. I guess I just want to know when that debt will be fulfilled.”
“I will tell you when you are done and no longer needed,” he said icily.
“Great, I’ll just hang around here while you string me along.
I’m sure some day I’ll be useless and you’ll let me know. So what wildly dangerously thing do you want me to do this time? Hock a loogie in the Devil’s face? Ride the world serpent? Steal fire from the gods? Tell Goths that Peter Murphy isn’t really that great?”
The old man stared at me with dark eyes for a long moment until I calmed down. “We are simply going into the Dark together and searching for the one who marked you. I demand no crazy stunts, nor anything more complicated than you following me. I will ask you to carry a few things.”
“So you just need a pack mule?”
“It is more than that,” he said. “But as far as what you will need to actually do, it is just follow and carry. I will take care of the rest.”
I leaned back in my seat and scanned his face. I didn’t buy it. There was something missing.
“And when do I get to leave?” I said, changing the subject. “When is all this done?”
“When your debt is – “
“Yeah, yeah, I get that,” I said. “You can say that over and over. And sure, it’s probably true. But you have some sort of secret Debt Meter in your head that I’ll never see. I need to know how close I am. How long will it be? When will be the last time I need to do something for you?”
He said nothing and simply rubbed his chin in thought.
“Will this be the last time?" I repeated. "If I do this for you, will I be able to go?”
I looked at him expectantly. I had such hope that this would be the last time. Maybe I could finally go home and not have to use some devious plan to escape the house.
“No,” he said flatly.
I was crestfallen. I frowned and tried to latch onto hope. “What about the time after that?”
“No,” he said again.
I almost flipped the dinner plate in front of me into the air with rage, but I held onto myself. “You know what, fuck you,” I said and got up from the table. I walked out of the house, while the old man said nothing behind me.
I walked outside to the deck and leaned on the railing while I looked out into the utterly desolate crap of the universe. Truly this was a wasteland; nothing but crap for miles around, while I was in the crap capital, the goddamn Fortress of Shit Solitude. How had I gotten here? How could I get away?
I fixed my vision as far as I could see and I saw nothing. I wanted to leave and that meant by foot. But no matter what direction I looked in, there was nothing for miles. How did one get out of this place? How did I get into this place? I had seen bones out there; were those from others who had tried to walk away?
I debated with myself over the old man’s intentions. He was definitely dealing with some hardcore shit here, some dark shit. That didn’t exactly make him Mr. Nice Guy. But when I fell almost dead on his doorstep, he did take me in and get me back to health. He did remove the mark and protect me from the hound that came after me. Well, sort of protect me.
On the other hand, I had Emily’s warnings. The old man only used people. If he helped me, it’s because he got something out of it or because he wanted me to owe him. He certainly had a debt on me now. She had said he would keep using me until he used me up; only then would he let me go, if there was anything to let go. With his arbitrary debt scale, that could be the case; I already felt like he was just stringing me along.
I turned over it all in my mind as the night sky shifted. I was tempted to just step off the deck right then and start walking. There was a certain liberation in the idea of just walking away from the whole situation, even if there was a possible (or very likely) death out there. I had walked across a desert half dead before, but on the other hand it almost killed me and I was lucky to end up at the house. It was that memory which narrowly kept me from walking away. Instead I continued thinking.
The worst possibilities were what Emily had said. He wanted to use me. Anything worse than that? Well, he could secretly be some monster and once out in the Dark he would devour me. Scary and possible, with all I had seen. But if he wanted my death, he had many opportunities, so why wait? On the good side he could want an apprentice, but that seemed unlikely.
Why would he still want me? What did I have that he wanted? I had no power, I had no possessions. So far the only thing of value was my link to Swearing Jim, and that the old man had already removed. The old man had some kind of feud with Jim it seemed, but what could I do? It seemed they were going to fight or somehow bargain for power.
I stared off into the desert before a thought crawled up my neck, causing my hair to stand on end. Worth. Bargain. Power. Jim. My only worth seemed to be in my connection to Swearing Jim. He wanted me for some unknown reason, even if he had let me go in our fight. The old man wanted power, which Jim seemed to have. Mestigus had just moved the house here based on some reading he got from the hound. Tomorrow night I was simply to follow the old man into the Dark. Something in my mind put together a horrible thought.
The old man was going to trade me to Swearing Jim for power.
I tried to think of reasons why this might not be true. I knew I was jumping to conclusions. But somehow that crazy intuition screamed in my mind, something deep inside me said it was right. Of course, next came second thoughts. Even though he was an ass, the old man saved my life, so I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. I wondered if maybe I should go talk to the old man. Even if I didn’t ask him outright, maybe I would see something in him to make me doubt my conclusion.
I walked back to the dining table, but it had already been cleared, the old man long gone. The study door was closed, as always. I walked around the first floor but didn’t find him. I returned to the dining area and sat down at the table in thought. I remained fixated upon the tumult in my head before I became aware and heard the noises.
Most late nights I had been in my room so I hadn’t been able to hear it. But here the sound radiated from the ceiling. The old man’s bedroom must have been directly above the dining area, which would have been an odd choice if the house’s layout wasn’t cramped. And here as I sat, I heard it and it made my stomach crawl.
From above me came the noises of what it other contexts could be called “lovemaking”, but there was no love involved. Here were the noises of sex, brazen and rough. I could hear the pants and grunts of the old man. While creepy and disgusting to think about, that’s not what disturbed me. No, I could hear Emily as well, but her sounds were not of enjoyment. They were of pain and sorrow, plaintive cries falling upon deaf ears. I could hear in those noises the essence of their relationship, the essence of the old man’s control.
It made me shudder, it made me uncomfortable. But it did much more. It fueled a rage in me like none other. For all the things that the old man might have done to me, all of that paled next to the wrongs he had done to her and continued to do to her. No, at that moment it was clear the old man was my enemy and to think of him as otherwise was to be misguided, deluded.
He was not my friend, and even if I owed him some unknown debt, he was still my enemy.
The sex noises continued above me, my rage growing with every breath, every thought. As rage took me, my own darkness settled on me. The old man was not the only one to play a game. I sat at the table and let all my doubt disappear. Now was the time for thinking in earnest. I began to develop a plan. One of desperation, one of vengeance.
Betrayal
July, 1994 - ??????
The next night couldn’t come soon enough. But at the same time, I admit that I almost wished it never came. I wanted to put my plan into action, to get back at the old man in a blaze of vengeance. On the other hand, I was also almost paralyzed with fear. From all of Emily’s allusions and half-dropped inferences, the old man was dangerous. I didn’t know how dangerous. Worse, I worried that he’d somehow know before I made my move. He always seemed to know everything as if he were somehow a mind reader. This was his game, so it was important he not see this move coming. If he couldn't read minds, I knew my face could give it away. Preemptively, I put up a mask of irritability th
at I maintained through the whole day. But with his dark eyes, I wondered. Every second in his presence I wondered whether those eyes were staring through me to the truth.
Somehow I made it to nighttime without him mentioning anything. When he called me outside, I thought the masquerade had failed and he was calling me on it. I tensed. But as I walked out of the house, he just talked about our trip into the Dark. There was a backpack of things for me to carry. Yup, I was a pack mule.
“So we’re going into the Dark to…” I prompted, which just caused him to stare at me as he measured an amount of powder from a pouch using his palm. No answer came.
After a period of silence, I answered my own question. “So we’re going into the Dark to strike at Swearing Jim?”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “I believe that’s your name for him.”
“What is it we’re going to do exactly?”
“Eh?” he said.
“I mean, are you going to be all ‘Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Sleep! Sleep!’ or are you going to do something else?”
He raised his eyebrow at me and stared for a moment. “My methods are unimportant. All you need to know is to follow and to carry.”
“But, shouldn’t I know some things? Warnings, admonishments, don't fucking touch that? I assume there's some danger I need to watch out for. I saw that place. Everything looks dangerous."
“There will be no danger that you have to worry about.”
“But what is it I shouldn’t be worrying about? Are we going to fight?”
“There may be fighting,” he said thoughtfully. “If things do not go well.”
“But if things go well –“ I started, but he silenced me with a hiss.
“I must prepare now.”
He mumbled to himself through his final preparations, then he started his singing, which either opened the way to the Dark, or he just wanted to show off the dulcet tones of his singing voice. As I sat there, I realized that nothing he had said changed things. In the back of my mind, I had hoped he could say something that would give me second thoughts. If he had said something that would have conflicted with the idea that he’d sell me up the river, then I might have paused in my plan. I would have seen I was wrong and shown some humanity. Yet nothing did. The fact that he was keeping me ignorant of what we were going to do made me even more suspicious. That dark acid of vengeance still burned slowly within me.
Damned Lies! Page 15
