Soulstorm

by Chet Williamson

  A voice grander than any he had ever heard before spoke within his head.

  You have done well.

  A peace that he had never known came over him.

  My true and faithful servant.

  He closed his eyes, letting the voice engulf him.

  To you shall be the power and the glory.

  To you shall be the power.

  The power.

  Power.

  Chapter Six

  David Neville's eyes were hollow, as if he hadn't slept for a long time. Gabrielle sprang to her feet as he entered the living room, watching in concern while he shuffled to the sofa and let himself fall onto it with a low moan. "David?"

  His appearance worried her. Could the cancer be progressing into the terminal stages, cutting into him here, where there was no hope of medical help? She touched his forehead. "David, are you all right?"

  "It's not working. . . ." There was a haunted look about him.

  "Darling, what do you—"

  "It's not right!" He looked up at her, and for the first time she noticed how pale he'd grown, how his cheekbones jutted out like they'd never done before. "I haven't seen anything," he went on in an impassioned whisper. "Not a thing. I hear them though. It's like they're laughing at me, like they could talk to me anytime but won't.

  "What's wrong with me, Gabrielle? Why won't they touch me? Why?" She put her arms around him and let him cry, although tears were beyond her now. Though David had told her why they'd come, though she knew what he was looking for, she did not understand him. He had become a stranger to her, made alien by the hand of death.

  "I don't know, David. Maybe because . . ." She'd been about to say because you want them too much, but instead, far different words came out. "Because you're dying."

  His mouth fell open as if he'd been struck.

  "They only want the strong," she went on. "What good would you be to them? You've got only a few months. What could you do for them?"

  She could not believe it herself, could not believe that she was being so cruel, was purposely baiting him with what was … the truth.

  The truth.

  And then she knew that someone or something was speaking through her, was taunting David with the horrible fact that he was not wanted by the companions he sought in the house that he owned.

  She thought at first that he was going to go into hysterics. He began to breathe more quickly and blood suffused his pale cheeks. But suddenly his eyes lost their desperate glare, and he smiled. It was a strange smile, one that she could not remember having seen on his face in all the years she'd known him. "So." He pulled away from her and stood up. "So that's it then, that's what you think. You think they don't want me because I'm not strong enough. You're wrong. They want me. They do. They know the power I have, the strength. Strength that you've never seen, never known about because I never had the chance to show it before. But you'll see it now, Gabrielle. I'll show you."

  He grasped her hair and pulled her to him, crushing her mouth against his. Her fear was greater than any passion he'd aroused, and she pushed away, falling back onto the sofa. He was on her in a flash, his hands moving roughly, his breathing stifled and heavy.

  "Stop," she said, "David, please don't. . . don't ..." But he ignored her protests, forcing her sweater up over her breasts, fumbling at the zipper of her slacks.

  She surrendered then. She could have fought him off, but if he could, she thought, if he could make love to her, then things might be all right, and then she might have her David back again for the short time that remained to them. If he needed to prove himself a man, if this was the only way, she would not stop him. So she continued to struggle only feebly, accepting the near-rape scenario he'd dictated, while he undressed her, and finally mounted her.

  It was no use. He was flaccid, and the dramatic struggle only made the result more absurd. He hovered over her, looking down at her tears of hurt and shame, and laughed brokenly. Then the slightly crazy smile vanished, and he stood up, pulling on his pants quickly, as if to hide his weakness. "I'm sorry," he said softly, and there was truth in the words. "I am so sorry, Gabrielle."

  He walked out the door into the hall. She rose to follow, then sighed and fell back on the sofa, thinking, Why? What could I say that would matter? And even if she could think of the right things to say, she did not think that those words would come out of her mouth.

  ~*~

  "So. Any more bad dreams? Fifty-seven . . .”

  “Not really."

  "What's 'not really' mean? Fifty-nine . . . sixty. That's it."

  Kelly Wickstrom sat up on the bench of the Nautilus and groaned dramatically. "Jesus, what a body I'll have when I get out of this place."

  "Don't change the subject," McNeely said.

  "Aw, shit, nothing to speak of. I had one about snow, I think." He grabbed the chinning bar and pulled himself up.

  "Oh? Skiing snow or ghouls of the white waste snow?”

  “Just . . . unh . . . snow." He dropped back down.

  "Don't ask questions while I'm chinning, okay? I lose my count and end up doing extra."

  McNeely laughed. "It couldn't hurt. You've still got a little tire there. He pointed to Wickstrom's middle.

  "Tire? Bullshit."

  "Check the mirror."

  "Okay. Maybe bicycle tire."

  "Got to leave those smoked oysters alone, Kelly.”

  “Hell, I never knew I liked smoked oysters before. They really that fattening?"

  "Most shellfish are," said McNeely, climbing onto the stationary bike. "Lots of cholesterol. Choke your heart and make you horny."

  "I better knock it off then. I don't need that." Wickstrom's expression changed slightly. "Only woman in this place is spoken for. Shame Neville's such a wacko. I wonder how she puts up with him. I mean, she seems so nice, not what you'd expect from someone who's super rich."

  "Assholes come in all shapes and colors. So do saints. Not that Gabrielle Neville's a saint, but she's . . . good? Is that the word? She seems like a good woman. Kind, intelligent, not obsessed with herself like her husband."

  "I noticed that," Wickstrom said. "When we first got here. He was acting like a king and she was showing us where the towels were." He laughed. "You can always trust a woman who shows you where the towels are!" His expression softened. "She's beautiful too."

  "That she is."

  "I think Cummings has the hots for her."

  "I think you're right," agreed McNeely. "He's as smarmy a type as I've ever seen. If he got invited to the White House, he'd probably make a pass at the First Lady." McNeely increased his speed on the bike until his legs were a blur.

  "Jesus, George. Your legs'll get so big, you won't be able to get through doors."

  McNeely laughed and slowed the machine to a stop. "Don't know about you, but I'm ready for a shower. I don't know why Neville didn't put a sauna in here."

  "Yeah." Wickstrom smiled slyly. "Cheap son of a bitch."

  The door to the gym opened suddenly, revealing Seth Cummings. He was wearing a pair of trunks and a sleeveless T-shirt that seemed too small for him. There was a hint of a smile on his face as he eyed the two men. "I didn't know there was anyone here," he said. His voice was carefully controlled, the way some men get when they've been drinking, but McNeely smelled no liquor on Cummings's breath.

  "We're just leaving," Wickstrom said. "You'll have the place to yourself."

  "I just might at that," Cummings said. Then he looked at McNeely as though he shared a great secret with him. "You're sure I'm not interrupting anything, Geo?" He leered.

  He pronounced the name Gee-oh, and it shook McNeely, rattled him with the knowledge that Cummings knew more about him than he'd thought, and that there was no way in which Cummings could have known.

  McNeely was called Geo by only one person in the world. It was a lover's term that Jeff used only when he and McNeely were alone. Yet Cummings had just used it as well, and accompanied it with the unspoken yet crystall
ine suggestion that something was going on between McNeely and Wickstrom.

  McNeely glanced at Wickstrom and saw him glaring at Cummings, a pink flush creeping up his cheeks. McNeely spoke quickly. "Not interrupting a thing, Seth. I hope we didn't sweat things up for you too much."

  Cummings merely smiled in a way that made McNeely want to push a fist in his face.

  "Come on, Kelly," McNeely said, moving to the door. "Let's grab a beer."

  They were halfway down the hall to the lounge before Wickstrom's temper let him speak in a tight voice. "What the hell did he mean, George?"

  "About what?"

  "That crack about interrupting anything."

  "I think he meant to suggest that we were gay."

  Wickstrom barked a bitter laugh and shook his head. "That guy is nuts, George. He's stone cold crazy. I bet he's great fun in his gym in the city. Probably thinks that everyone who exercises with a buddy is queer. What's wrong with him?"

  "Cabin fever. Or maybe he wishes we were all gay so he could get some action."

  "Why doesn't he go pound it or something?"

  McNeely laughed, then stopped as a strange look came into his eyes.

  "What's wrong?" asked Wickstrom at the door to the lounge.

  McNeely didn't answer right away. Then he shook his head. "Nothing. Let's have a beer."

  But there was something, and McNeely strained to think just what it was. There had been something very different about Cummings. He had seemed less furtive and more confident, but it was not his change in manner that alarmed McNeely as much as something else. A physical change perhaps.

  Yes. That was it. As he sat back in the easy chair and let the ale slip down his throat, he pictured Seth Cummings standing there in the gym door looking at him. But Cummings hadn't been looking up at as steep an angle as he had before when talking to McNeely.

  "Back in a minute," McNeely said, and walked down the hall to the gym, where Cummings was doing upright rows with free weights. "Sorry," McNeely said, glancing about the room. "Thought I left my towel in here. Kelly must've picked it up. Keep pumping." And he was back in the hall again, but not before he'd verified what he had suspected.

  Cummings was growing. He'd been about five feet eight when McNeely had seen him before. But now, in low gym shoes, he was standing at least five ten. And what's more, the Adidas T-shirt Cummings was wearing was stretched across the shoulders and rode a half inch above his waist, as if it were a size too small.

  It made no sense. They couldn't have been there long enough for Cummings to exercise his muscles out of his clothes, and even if he had, he couldn't have grown two inches in height.

  ~*~

  In the gym Seth Cummings smiled at the door through which McNeely had just left. Geo. The name had slipped so easily into his head, along with the thought—McNeely is a faggot. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew, as though McNeely's mind were an open book. Even in the few seconds when McNeely had returned to the gym (Looking for a towel? Bullshit!), Cummings had assessed his real purpose—to see how Cummings had changed physically.

  He looked down at his body. It was true. He was changing. He wasn't sure when he'd first noticed it himself, but it must have been only a short time after the Master spoke to him in his room.

  The Master had promised him strength, and apparently it meant physical strength as well as the strength of mind and will he would need to do the Master's bidding.

  To do his bidding. Cummings chuckled at the phrase. It sounded so ancient, so replete with the suggestion of serfdom. He had never thought of himself as a serf of any man's. But the Master was different. In a way he was like Cummings himself, a part of him that he had never known existed, something inside that sang of strength and glory and power, of honor and fame and blood.

  Blood. Where had that come from? What did blood have to do with any of it?

  Perhaps it had in some way been connected with the "death" of the girl, the whore he'd thought was Gabrielle. The Master had been testing him with her, to see if the strength was in him, the strength to fight back, to kill if necessary. He didn't completely understand why he had had to do that, but supposed that the Master had his reasons. Strange, almost funny, that the girl should be the one who was killed all those years ago. By the poet, probably.

  What had he killed, he wondered. And what had he made love to? A ghost, but whether a real ghost or a ghost of his own mind, he couldn't tell. But why had she called him "dream lover," almost as if the dream were hers?

  A knot laced in his stomach as an impossible thought hit him and he remembered that here there was no such word as impossible: what if the dream had been hers, almost sixty years ago?

  What if he had bridged the gap of years and gone back to her, rather than she coming to him?

  If the poet were innocent?

  If he, Seth Cummings, had murdered the girl twenty years before he was even born?

  "No … “ he whispered into the silence of the gym.

  But no voice came back either to confirm or deny. The Master was silent.

  ~*~

  The canvas was blank, the bottle of scotch half empty. She looked at the brush, then at the empty glass by her side, and picked up the glass. Adding two fingers of scotch to it, she sat again in the straight-backed wooden chair, and stared at the canvas.

  White. Nothing but pure untouched white, all hers to daub on, to turn blue and green and dark brown and whatever else took her fancy. She picked up her sketches and examined them, then looked at the four huge volumes, the compass, and the sextant she'd arranged so artistically so long ago. So long ago that she couldn't remember doing it.

  She tossed the sketches on the floor, stood up, and prowled unsteadily about the room. It was larger than any room intended as a nursery had a right to be. Whole families could live in it, she thought in an uncommon moment of humanitarianism that made her feel drunkenly ashamed that such a thought had never occurred to her before. One by one she picked up the toys placed around the room. They gleamed newly after sixty years, as though they'd never been touched.

  Perhaps they haven't. How long did the children stay before the boy died? Only a few weeks at most, she thought. Such a waste—all these shelves full of toys—huge wooden trains, shiny tin windups in bright reds and yellows, stuffed bears and elephants waiting half a century for a bedtime hug. She picked up a plushy armful and embraced them, scotch tears in her eyes, ignoring the small delicate clouds of white dust that puffed from them as she squeezed them. Then she set them down carefully, as if they would bruise, and recalled for the first time in years the stuffed animals and dolls that had littered her canopy bed until she'd entered her late teens. But try as she would, she couldn't remember any of their names.

  Or had they even had names? Had they just been there in their place as everything else had always been there in its place waiting for her all her life? She tried again, but she couldn't remember their names.

  A tin trolley sat on top of a polished shelf, and she picked it up to banish the memory of her girlhood bed. She wound the key in its side and set it down on the hardwood floor. It whirred and rattled madly, then skittered unevenly along, the pressed metal trolleyman jerking the power stick back and forth, rocking on his tin heels. The four wheels were purposely mounted helter-skelter, so that the trolley in motion gave the impression of riding on a notoriously bumpy track, and Gabrielle laughed as it lurched and jolted its way along, the mechanical trolleyman trying frantically to control its unpredictable surges.

  And for a moment she forgot, forgot where she was and why she was there, forgot her husband and McNeely and Wickstrom and Cummings and who and what else was there in The Pines, and she laughed and laughed until the tears came and the trolley shivered and slowed and finally stopped, letting her remember again so that the tears of drunken joy turned to sobs of drunken grief that shook her like a giant's fist. The giant who laughed, she thought wildly in the second before she heard the voice.

  "Things don't run f
orever."

  She swung around toward the door, losing her balance, and would have fallen if McNeely hadn't grabbed her. When she saw it was him, she clutched at him as though she wanted, in a second of madness, to kiss him, to pull him close to her. But when she saw the utter lack of intensity in his eyes, she stepped back, pushing his arms away, and stood there, shivering.

  "Machines, I mean," he said, his face solemn. He picked up the now silent trolley and examined it. "Sorry I shook you up. I seem to have gotten into the habit lately." He looked at her, showing concern for the first time. "Are you sick?"

  She laughed. "Who isn't?"

  "It seems you've been taking some medication for it." He smiled, nodding at the depleted bottle of Glenlivet. "What's wrong, Gabrielle?"

  "Nothing." Her voice was choked, on the edge of tears.

  "An artist with an empty canvas? That's wrong in itself. Is it David?"

  "No."

  He watched her for a minute. Liar or not, she met his gaze clearly and directly. "He's very ill, isn't he?"

  She was incapable of hiding her surprise; her eyes widened.

  "I see I'm right."

  "How … how did you know?"

  "I've been around death all my life, death and the fear of death. That fear's very strong in your husband." McNeely shook his head and sat down in one of the small straight-backed chairs. His large frame made it look Lilliputian. "I knew there was something about him that first day. I knew he wasn't here out of curiosity. And once I realized he might be dying, it was easy to figure out why he'd come."

  He paused as if to give her time to corroborate his conclusions, but she remained silent.

  "To live forever," he said softly. "That's why he came, wasn't it?"

  Finally she nodded.

  "What did he expect? What in hell did he expect to find here?" McNeely laughed unbelievingly. "A welcoming party of ghosts to escort him painlessly to the other side?"

  Gabrielle Neville's cry made her body tremble with its power. "Yes! Yes, that's exactly what the damned fool hoped he'd find! But since that first day no one, no one has seen a fucking thing!" McNeely winced at the word coming from her lips. "I think he's insane," she said, "I honestly do. And I don't think even a week's gone by in this hellhole. What'll he be like when we finally get out?" Her face went rigid, and she whispered, "What will any of us be like?"