Private Demons

by Robert Masello

  And Lucien nodded, as if he were answering it.

  Hallie felt the bed, the cabin, the whole plane, drop away; her stomach lurched as they suddenly lost altitude. A cloud of steam from the shower billowed out of the bathroom; a stream of water ran over the threshold and onto the bedroom carpet.

  Oh, God, they really were going to crash. She couldn’t believe it. They really were going to crash.

  Everything in the room angled downward. The blanket slid off the mattress and into the pool of water that had gathered on the floor. Hallie had to hang onto the headboard just to keep from falling out of bed.

  Lucien was pressed into the corner now, his head raised but his eyes still closed. His face was astonishingly calm. The scar on his chest seemed to glow, a pale violet color, in the faint light from the bathroom.

  The plane heaved, and Hallie screamed; she heard it without at first knowing where it had come from. Another burst of steam rolled, like a fog, out of the bathroom door and into the cabin. It swirled thickly at the foot of the bed.

  “Calais . . . Calais . . . can you hear me?” The intercom mike was lying somewhere on the floor. “Can you hear me, Calais?”

  Hallie dug her heels into the mattress, to ease the strain on her arms.

  The plane tilted to the left, then the right; the steam spread, like a gray curtain, between the bed and the bathroom. The vapors swirled, and coiled, and grew more dense. Hallie found herself staring, almost transfixed, into the mist. It was almost as if the steam were struggling to take some shape.

  Lucien slowly rose up, and opened his eyes. His legs were spread wide, to keep his balance. He too was staring into the fog.

  “Lucien,” Hallie called, “stay down! Stay down!”

  The plane bucked like a wild horse, throwing the scroll off the wall; Hallie heard the glass break. But Lucien managed to remain standing.

  The light from the bathroom could hardly penetrate the thickening fog. With horror, Hallie now saw that the walls and ceiling of the cabin were running with water, thin rivulets coursing down like streams clinging to the sides of a grotto. Droplets fell from above the bed and landed on her face and hair. She brushed her face against the sheet to clear her vision, but wet hair still hung down into her eyes.

  There appeared to be something—a figure, large and strangely sinuous—immersed in the fog. Lucien was facing it—almost right beside it. Hallie was too terrified even to scream.

  Lucien spoke; she could see his lips move. But his words were impossible to make out above the roar of the wind, the splashing of the water, the rumbling of the engines. His fingertips touched the circular scar on his chest.

  The creature in the mist—God help her—appeared amused. Its head, as sleek and green as a snake’s, reared back. For a split second, she glimpsed two bulging, rounded eyes, shining.

  Lucien spoke again; now she could tell, just from the cadence, that it wasn’t English. Or any language she knew. Cambodian. It had to be that.

  The creature made a low sibilant noise—Jesus Christ, it was almost as if it were answering him! The fog roiled all around it. The cabin reeked of a jungle after a heavy rain.

  Lucien shook his head, violently. The creature twisted in place, balanced precariously on its own coiled tail.

  The plane groaned, and rolled to the left, shaking a flood of water loose from the ceiling. Hallie’s face was drenched in warm, brackish water. She thought she must be going out of her mind. With one hand, she let go of the headboard and wiped the water away from her eyes and lips. Her hand was trembling.

  The thing in the mist seemed, for the first time, to take notice of her. She sensed it turning toward her, she felt it observing her with a baleful glare. What light there was came from behind it, lending it a sort of dim silhouette. It looked like nothing she’d ever seen before; it looked like nothing she could ever have imagined . . . not even in her worst nightmare. It looked like a giant slug . . . that had devoured, and almost become, a man. It looked wet, and reptilian, but with a preternatural intelligence in its widely spaced eyes. And it looked, most of all, though she could not have said why, like the absolute embodiment of all things evil . . .

  Lucien shouted something—nothing that made any sense to Hallie—and suddenly the plane was engulfed in a deafening wind. It felt as if they had been picked up by some monstrous force and sent hurtling through the night. Hallie felt the teeth rattle in her head; she felt her eyes being pressed back into her skull. The cabin shook, the water racing down its walls. The thing in the mist was bending toward her, its sleek head sinking lower . . . she screamed, and the last of the lights went out. She pulled her feet up toward her chest, up the soaking mattress. Water gushed from the ceiling; she screamed again . . . and felt something, something slick and wet, yet strong as a whip, lash itself around her ankle. She kicked, but the thing held tight. She kicked again, and felt what seemed like bumps . . . a rough texture of tiny bumps . . . on the thing that was holding her. It felt—and this was the last thing she remembered before the blackness and the horror overcame her—as if she were in the grip of a long and hungry and relentless tongue . . .

  “There you are, sugar. There you are.”

  A cool cloth was mopping her brow.

  “That’s right. You can open your eyes now. Everything’s all right. Everything’s fine.”

  Hallie opened her eyes. Janet was sitting beside her, on the edge of the cot.

  “You don’t have to ask,” Janet said. “We’re on Wake Island. And everyone’s fine.” She dabbed at Hallie’s forehead with the cloth. “And that includes you.”

  It all came flooding back in on Hallie—the plane, the storm, the terror. . . She sat up, leaning on one elbow. Janet must have seen the fright in her eyes.

  “Honey, it’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. We hit a real bad patch of weather, but we’re all okay. Even the plane’s okay.”

  “What happened?”

  “What I just told you—we ran into a bad storm. But it went the same way it came—out of nowhere. We put down here to refuel, and to check out the plane. As soon as they’re finished drying it out, we’re gonna be back on our way.”

  The water, coursing down the walls. The steam, from the bathroom . . .

  “The hydraulics blew, in a big way,” Janet went on, “and pretty much soaked the place. It looked like a steam bath in that rear cabin.”

  In the mist, Hallie had seen something . . . it had been reaching out at her . . . it had touched her. She sat up the rest of the way and turned her ankle. There was a patch of gauze and adhesive tape wound around it.

  “Your ankle was all twisted up in the wet sheet,” Janet explained. “The skin looked pretty irritated.” She smiled. “I figured, you models make your living with your looks. I better do what I could to help out.” She patted her leg, just above the bandage. “It’s just some antiseptic.”

  For the first time, Hallie looked around her. She was clearly in some sort of infirmary—there was a stainless steel counter, a scale, an eye chart. The door cracked open, and Lucien peered in.

  “You’re awake,” he said, coming into the room. “Perfect timing.”

  He took Hallie’s hand. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and neatly pressed black trousers. “How do you feel now?”

  Hallie didn’t know what to say. She was surprised that he seemed so cool, so complacent. That he had forgotten the horrible things she had witnessed on the plane.

  Or had he?

  “I’m okay, I guess.”

  Had it just been the hydraulics, pouring water down the walls? Had it just been the sheet, coiled around her ankle? Had the thing in the mist . . . just been her imagination?

  “You had quite a scare,” Lucien said, staring down into her eyes. His hair was pulled back into its tight, short ponytail; his ruby ring glistened on his finger. “We all did. But I’m sure Janet’s already told you, it was just a freak storm. The rest of the flight—I promise you—we will have no such trouble.”

 
; He said it as if he could guarantee the weather.

  “And Bud has just informed me that the plane is ready to go . . . if we are.”

  For a moment, Hallie wanted to say, “That’s it? That’s all that happened? There was nothing in the mist? Nothing you spoke to? We hit some turbulence, and that’s all that happened?” But in Lucien’s gaze she saw something that was at once so sure, so persuasive, and in its own way so forbidding, that she simply swung her legs off the cot and slipped her feet into the shoes that Janet had left there for her. The shoes felt a little bit warm and stiff, as if they too had had to be dried out.

  CHAPTER

  8

  For Lucien, Bangkok was a familiar sight—in some ways too familiar. It was a city where he had seen, and done, many things, some of which he wished he could no longer remember. But for Hallie, he hoped, it would all be terribly new and exotic . . . so exotic that she might forget, if only for a while, her terrifying ordeal on the plane.

  At Don Muang Airport, they had been met by two white Cadillacs, the usual mode of transportation for guests of the Oriental Hotel. Hallie and Lucien had occupied the first car, while Hun and Janet followed in the second. On the drive into the city, Lucien tried to distract and entertain Hallie with observations on the local culture and customs, but she still seemed distant and a little bit shaky.

  “Do you see those miniature houses, on posts?” he asked as they stopped at a traffic light.

  “Yes,” she said, looking out the window. “Are they bird-houses?”

  Festooned with flowers and garlands, and brightly painted, they adorned the lawn, or porch, of virtually every house they passed.

  “No,” Lucien said as they forged on through the thick afternoon traffic, “they are called ‘spirit houses.’ The Thais believe that spirits inhabit the land that they have built their houses on, and to appease them, they put up these little houses to show respect and gratitude.”

  “But they’re so pretty,” Hallie said.

  “You would not want to offend the spirits.” Lucien was glad to see something—anything—catch her interest. He wanted to obliterate from her mind everything she had witnessed on the way over; he wanted to tell her, point-blank, that it had all been a terrible dream, that none of it had been real, that she had nothing to fear. But he was afraid she would hear the lack of conviction in his voice. So he tried, instead, to fill her thoughts with other things.

  Even Lucien was surprised at the rapid progress, if that’s what it could be called, that the Thais were making. The route from the airport had been expanded into a modern six-lane expressway, crowded with compact cars, vans, and buses. The sides of the road revealed the jumble that the country had become—everywhere there were TV antennas and huge movie billboards, vying with the gilded spires of Buddhist temples and teakwood houses raised on stilts. Fruit and vegetable vendors plied their wares next to gas stations, video shops, and cinderblock apartment buildings. As they approached the heart of the city, the traffic became even more congested; thousands of bicycles, and samlors—the local motorized version of the rickshaw—wove in and out of the stalled lanes, ringing their bells and beeping their horns. An orchid vendor, wearing a straw coolie hat and Ray-Ban sunglasses, rapped on Hallie’s window and offered her a pink and white lei. She shook her head, but before leaving, he pressed one flower into the crevice of the closed window. “Sawat dee," he called, and chugged away on his motor scooter.

  “What did he say?” she asked Lucien.

  “Just good-bye,” he said. “But the same expression also means hello.”

  “This could be a confusing country.”

  “It is.”

  Eventually, they made their way past the sword-like Victory Monument, commemorating a bloody World War II campaign, and onto the Raj Damri Road. The driver, in a spotless white uniform and gloves, apologized for the delay.

  “Always building more highway,” he said, “but always more car.”

  “Sounds like home,” Hallie said, with a smile. “In New York we call it gridlock.”

  “Excuse?” he said, regarding her in the rearview mirror.

  “Gridlock—it’s when there are so many cars trying to get somewhere that no one gets anywhere.”

  He smiled back, and nodded vigorously. “That Bangkok. Gridlock—all the time.”

  It was twilight when they pulled up at the Oriental. A beautiful woman, in a blue and green sarong, greeted them under the porte cochere.

  “Sawat dee, Monsieur Calais. It has been too long since we last saw you.” She bowed her head toward Hallie. “Welcome to the Oriental Hotel.” Turning, she ushered them into the lobby; when Hallie started in the direction of the check-in desk, she murmured, “That is not necessary,” and continued on, down a long hallway hung with a succession of oversized wooden lanterns. “We have reserved for you your usual rooms,” she said to Lucien, over her shoulder, “in the Authors’ Wing.”

  Hallie looked puzzled. “You came all this way just to write a book?” she asked Lucien with a raised eyebrow.

  He shook his head, then explained in a low voice, “It’s called that because many great writers have stayed there over the years. You have heard of Somerset Maugham and Sir Noel Coward?”

  “Yes, I have,” she replied. She knew enough not to take offense at the question; Lucien, a product of so many cultures, was never sure what was common knowledge and what was not.

  “Good,” he replied. “We will be staying in Mr. Joseph Conrad’s room.”

  “Well, that’s fine with me,” said Hallie, “just so long as it’s okay with this Conrad guy.”

  For one brief moment, it looked as if Lucien was about to correct her mistake. Then he saw the glint in her eye, and laughed.

  The door was already standing open, and their hostess stood aside to allow them in.

  It was the most beautiful hotel room Hallie had ever seen—and on her many modeling assignments she had seen plenty. It was a suite, actually, with high ceilings and broad windows that reached to the floor. The walls were covered in an embroidered silk, of green and gold, that matched the canopies and spreads of the two four-poster beds. There was a huge marble bath, a spacious dressing closet that smelled faintly of sandalwood, and a balcony that overlooked the slow-moving, pale-gray water of the Chao Phya River. The river, like the city streets, had more than its share of traffic—sampans, water taxis, tugboats, barges, sleek “fantail” motor-boats that even in the gathering darkness skipped along the water at full throttle.

  “Don’t these folks ever sit still?” Hallie said to Lucien, who had joined her on the balcony.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, “there is also a very peaceful, contemplative side to Thailand. The city is filled with some very beautiful Buddhist temples. You can go to see them tomorrow, if you like.”

  “But not with you?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I will be leaving first thing in the morning, for Pattaya. But I have asked Janet to look out for you. She knows Bangkok quite well.”

  “What’s in this Pattaya place?"

  “It is near the site of the Garuda explosion . . . and I have an old friend there, named Sri Halim, that I wish to see.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “By midnight . . . there’s no reason to spend the night in Pattaya.”

  “I should hope not,” Hallie replied.

  Lucien was pleased to hear Hallie sounding more and more like herself.

  At six A.M. the next day, the helicopter was waiting. Bill Wilkerson, the head of Calais’s emergency control team, was piloting the craft himself. Hun climbed in first, and squeezed into the seat behind Wilkerson, while Lucien sat up front. They strapped themselves in, then put on headphones so they’d be able to hear each other over the thrashing of the rotors. Lifting off, they crossed over the main railway line, and the Rama IV Road, which was already backed up with flatbed trucks carrying produce to the open-air markets. Wilkerson, a heavyset man with a bristly crew cut and a sunburned face, pointed down to
the Lumpini boxing stadium when they passed over it, and said, “Big match tonight,” into his microphone. In Thailand, Lucien knew, boxing was an immensely popular sport, particularly with bettors. But the rules, which allowed for elbowing, kicking, and a ceremonial solo dance before the bout, would be unrecognizable to American fans.

  Pattaya was eighty-five miles to the southeast of Bangkok, and the site where the Garuda had gone down another twenty miles or so beyond that. Lucien, in the plexiglass-enclosed cockpit, had an almost unlimited view in all directions, even straight down; it was as if he were sitting in a bright, clear bubble. The outskirts of the city, where the office buildings and industry gradually gave way to scrubby patches of maize and tomato, raced past beneath his feet. Soon, they were away from Bangkok altogether, and hugging the coastline of the country along the Gulf of Thailand. The hot sun was already beating off the surface of the water; fishing boats, their silvery nets slung over the sides, bobbed their way out to sea. An oil tanker, which Calais recognized was not one of his own—could it be part of the Gold Prow fleet?—headed slightly to the west. On its present course, it had to be going somewhere in Malaysia, and Calais couldn’t help but wonder, his business instincts never dormant for long, just how many barrels she was carrying, to what port . . . and for what company.

  Inland, to Lucien’s left, the country was a dense mat of greenery, an emerald plain of mango and tamarind trees, teak forests so thick and dark they appeared blue in the morning light, eucalyptus groves on the higher slopes of the gently rolling hills. Tiny fishing villages dotted the jagged coastline, woodsmoke rising above the tin and thatch-roofed houses. And every so often, catching the rays of the sun, the golden spire of a secluded Buddhist wat—or temple—shot up out of the trees, silently proclaiming the endless and unchanging cycle of life. It was the sight of these that most reminded Lucien of his life, his home, in Cambodia.