The dead boy was no longer behind him. He was downstairs, his back to Oscar, looking.
Oscar crept down one tread at a time, willing his irises to open wider to counter the heavy darkness. The stairs creaked under their carpet pelt, and Oscar grimaced. Across the lounge room was the dining room, the kitchen, and on the far wall the stairs to the basement. Thirty feet through darkness.
Oscar felt the hairs on his scalp and arms rise. How long would it take to cross to the kitchen? Six seconds? Five? If he ran fast enough and didn’t hit any furniture, maybe—
Scrape.
Something moved in the deep shadows below.
The dead boy whirled and turned his white face to Oscar, raised his arms, and dropped them hard.
Without thinking, Oscar ducked.
Something huge streaked over his head and smashed into the wall. Air flumed around his head and a charnel-house stink assaulted his nostrils.
“Fuck!”
Oscar lost his footing and tumbled down the remaining stairs. He fell on his face, sprawled on the carpet runner.
Foul wind poured like a wave over his face, and a huge mass punched through the air above him. Something sharp nicked into his shoulder, tracing a bright line of pain. There was a gigantic whuffing of air, then ahead of him the brass chandelier dropped to the dining table with a deafening crash.
Oscar got to hands and knees and scrambled to the dining table, hurling chairs out of his way. Behind him, the air shook again, and something weighty landed on the floor. He turned to see between the table and chair legs a large hunch of darkness, shifting and moving inhumanly toward him. Then a leathery scrape as it gripped timber, and one of the chairs was flung across the room, shattering on a wall.
Oscar glanced ahead and saw the dead boy crouched in front of him, frantically waving him foward. Oscar felt the air pulse behind him and heard a mighty suck of wind. He fumbled between the table’s end legs and felt a razor nick in his ankle. He jerked his leg away and heard hard, sharp things tear carpet.
There were two creatures. Into his mind flashed the Burney Relief and the winged, clawfooted woman flanked by lean cats and two huge, death-eyed owls.
Oscar got to his stockinged feet and ran toward the dead boy.
A great shadow detached from the darkness above and barreled down at him. He had just a moment to see it grow as two enormous capelike wings arced high. He threw himself behind the island bench as a great chunk of painted wood exploded from its corner, splintering out across the floor. Air buffeted Oscar as he flung his hands over his head and curled; the massive shape swept past him, and he heard the crackle of dry feathers slapping the laminated bench top. A graveyard stench dusted the air, and the creature’s momentum carried it on into darkness. Furniture was tossed aside, torn and snapped.
Oscar looked behind him. The boy stood at the top of the basement stairs, gesturing urgently for Oscar to follow. Oscar didn’t want to move—there was no cover between the bench and the stairs. He could feel warm liquid dripping down inside his shirt—the cuts stung like razor slashes. The dead boy waved sharply—now! Oscar rolled to his feet and ran in a crouch, his eyes on the boy’s wan face. Glass splinters stabbed through his socks and into his feet. He ignored the pain.
The boy’s black, blank eyes seemed to widen, and he threw his hands to the floor. Oscar let himself drop and felt fetid air blast past him. Hair was torn from his head, and new strips of ice-sharp pain flared across his rib cage. The crockery cupboard above him burst apart as a huge gray shadow slammed into it—glass and shards of timber flew like shrapnel, and the air was thrashed in huge, violent scoops.
Oscar dived through the door and down the basement stairs. His knee twisted painfully as he whirled to the door—he took its painted edge and slammed it shut just as something smashed at the other side, and Oscar heard the timbers of the jamb squeal in protest. He reached up and rammed the barrel bolt home. Smash! The timber in the middle of the door began to splinter. He turned and felt his bad knee fail, and he slid on his backside down the stairs, each tread punching painfully into the small of his back. He landed in a heap at the bottom just as a third blow smashed at the door, and he heard the screws that secured the barrel bolt ping away into the darkness like bullets.
And bullets were what he needed. He limped across the wet floor toward the workbench. Above it was the padlocked metal gun cabinet. He fumbled in his pocket for the key.
Smash! The door at the top of the stairs shook on its hinges and more strained metal squealed. Oscar looked around but couldn’t see the dead boy. He felt with one hand for the padlock and jabbed at it with the key. It wouldn’t go in.
Smash-smash! Twin blows against the door, and a loud crackle of failing, splitting timber.
Oscar flipped the key, and it slipped into the lock. He twisted hard and the hasp snapped out. He wrenched the metal door open. He knew what was in there: the two .22 rifles that he and Sandro used to take rabbit-shooting—the Weatherby and the Marlin. Scopes. Magazines. Cardboard boxes of cartridges.
SMASH! CRASH! The door flung open, and the air in the basement shuddered. Oscar’s fingers closed on a rifle, a magazine, a box of shells. He felt rather than saw what was coming and dropped to the floor just as everything on the workbench was swept aside by a vicious wave, and there was a piercing shriek as sharp claws scraped across metal and the gun cabinet was wrenched from the wall to clang loudly on the floor.
As Oscar ran across the basement, he realized with dismay that the box of cartridges he clutched in his hand seemed to be getting lighter, and he heard the brassy tinkle as shells fell to the floor. He gripped it harder and sprinted for the tiny bathroom on the other side. The dead boy was beside its door, pinwheeling his arms. Oscar felt the air behind him charge with a building rush as things gathered momentum and streaked toward him. He dived into the tiny cubicle, smacking his head painfully on the porcelain—a dazzling white cloud of sparks roiled behind his eyes. He swung one leg and kicked the door closed behind him, then braced it shut with the other just as the creature smashed into it.
CRASH! A powerful shock of impact jolted up Oscar’s leg. He put his bleeding shoulder against the porcelain pedestal and braced both feet on the door.
CRASH! Splinters of wood struck his face; his legs shuddered and fresh pain erupted from his twisted knee. He rolled the rifle onto his chest and fumbled for the magazine, and with shaking fingers began to feed in cartridges. He realized that from the whole box he had only six in his palm.
CRASH! An ugly nova of gray half-light appeared in the middle of the door. Oscar fed two more shells into the clip. His shoulder was growing ice-cold.
The crashing stopped. Silence. His trembling fingers slipped the last cartridge into the magazine.
BANG! The timber of the door quaked under a massive impact, and the whole toilet room shuddered. Grenades of pain went off in Oscar’s knees, shoulder, neck. And by the murky trickle of light coming through the new hole in the door he saw three claws as large as daggers spear through the timber and begin to tear.
“Fuck off!” Oscar shouted.
The claw wrenched away a chunk of door paneling as large as a bread plate and Oscar saw a curve of horn as large as a man’s shoe slide slyly into the new gap. Its beak. Oscar felt his stomach go to water. The room went black and the door timber screamed and splintered as the beak bit and twisted.
Oscar slammed the magazine home, chambered a round, pointed the barrel at the widening hole, and pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening in the small space, but not as loud as the awful, alien howl from the other side—a piercing sound like a thousand fingernails across blackboards. He chambered another round and fired again. Another shriek, as shrill as shearing metal. His ears rang. He chambered another round.
An eye appeared in the hole—a sulfur-yellow disk with a black and lifeless oil pool at its center. Oscar aimed from the hip and fired. He heard the creature’s head snap to the side. He slid the bolt and fired one more time through
the door. There was a final, frustrated screech as loud as a braking train. A massive flurry of air. Silence.
Oscar lay on the cold, damp concrete, listening.
There was no sound except the ringing in his ears and the harsh, fast gasps of his own breaths. His heart pumped pain around his body. He had only one round left in the gun.
He held it tight on his chest, pointed at the door, for a long, long time.
Over the shaking barrel of the .22, he peered carefully out the ugly hole wrenched in the toilet door. Misty gray light of early morning shone through the basement windows. He could see the damp floor, the workbench with its scattered mess, the twisted crumple of the gun cabinet. In the middle of the room was the dead boy. He gave a small smile and raised his thumb.
Jon found him seated at the dining table, drinking from a bottle of cooking sherry he’d discovered at the back of the pantry.
The big man looked around at the smashed chairs, the shattered cupboards, the loaded rifle in front of Oscar.
“Oscar,” Jon said carefully. “What the fuck?”
Oscar shrugged stiffly.
“What happened?” Jon asked. “I couldn’t get you on your phone. You weren’t home. What the fuck?”
Oscar watched Jon turn slowly, surveying the damage. He didn’t know what to say. In the basement, he had found the rest of the .22 cartridges, fully loaded the magazine, and gone through the house. There were no feathers. There was no lingering smell of the crypt. No sign of forced entry. Only a drunk, distraught man who’d just lost his father and his partner and his job, and a trail of destruction.
“You’re bleeding,” Jon said, looking at Oscar’s shoulder, shirt, bare feet.
Oscar nodded again and offered the grappa bottle to Jon, who batted it away.
“What happened, man?”
Oscar wondered if he should tell him. Tell him about the symbol, about Haig, about the missing children and the altar and the Burney Relief and the owls as big as Alsatians.
But he knew how it would sound.
“I drank too much,” he whispered. “It’s nothing.”
Jon lifted him. “I’m taking you to Emergency.”
Oscar shook his head, and nausea swelled in his gut.
“I’ll call you later.”
Oscar tidied the house. Straightened the chairs. Swept up the broken glass and the splintered wood. And shivered the whole time. He sobered quickly and rode home.
He was sprinkling salt into a shallow saucepan of water over the gas ring when he realized that she was behind him. He could almost feel her eyes wandering over the puncture wounds and shallow slices in his bare shoulders.
“What have you done now?” she asked.
He turned around.
Zoe stood in the doorway, her bags in her hands, undecided. Four paces behind her, the dead boy stood watching, too. The sunlight was harsh.
“You should go,” he said quietly.
Her eyes narrowed, and she stepped into the kitchen, putting down the bags.
“What happened?” she asked.
He shook his head. She made him sit. She poured some salt water into a bowl, dipped a cloth in it, blew gently to cool it, and dabbed at the wounds. He gritted his teeth.
“What did this?” she asked.
“You have to leave the city, I think,” he said.
Her pursed lips seemed to say that she was considering the same thing. She dipped again, and the water stained pink.
Oscar looked up. The dead boy was closer. He was looking not at Oscar but at Zoe. He extended a finger and cut a Z into the air. He made an O with fingers and thumb, then pulled their tips tight toward his pale palm.
Oscar stopped her hands and looked at her.
“Do you have any deaf kids at Elverly?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Do you sign?”
“A little.”
Oscar repeated the three letters the dead boy had made.
Zoe raised an eyebrow. “Cute. I didn’t know you signed.”
Oscar felt like a fool. “I don’t,” he said, and looked at the dead boy. “Who are you?”
The dead boy’s wormhole eyes seemed to fix on Oscar’s moving lips, reading them. He frowned, and Oscar could see his chin tremble. Then his head jerked and his hands rose and began to move. Oscar awkwardly emulated every movement: he patted his chest, tapped two fingers of each hand together, then held up crossed fingers.
Zoe watched and spoke. “My. Name. Is …”
The dead boy licked his lips and signed each letter. Oscar copied.
“J-a-m-y. B-r-u-m.”
Oscar stared. “Hello, Jamy,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
The dead boy nodded and gave a small smile.
“You were deaf?” he asked the boy. “You read lips?”
Jamy nodded shyly. Then his hands rose again.
Oscar copied; Zoe interpreted.
“I. Am. S-o-r-r-y.”
Jamy turned his empty eyes to the floor. Outside, sunlight made the windows bright and the boy seemed to glow. Motes passed through him.
“Sorry for what?” Oscar asked.
The dead boy’s hands rose and performed a graceful, simple pantomime. One hand was a car. The other a person. The car swerved. The person fell.
Oscar felt a strange lightness in his chest. He felt empty, almost weightless. He looked at the boy with the downcast, horrible eyes.
“That wasn’t your fault,” he said.
The boy shrugged.
Then he seemed to steel himself. He raised his hands and signed again.
“And,” Zoe interpreted.
Jamy’s hands fell mute at his waist.
“And? And what, Jamy?”
The dead boy pursed his lips. Chin still low and narrow shoulders hanging, he signed some more.
Zoe said, “Let. Me. Show. You.”
Chapter 36
Zoe’s arms tightened around him as he took each corner. Every pothole caused the bike to shudder and pain to spark in his body. Steam rose from the wet asphalt, and the sun flared on the glass towers of the city. Every time Oscar rounded a corner, Jamy would be on the side of the road or at the lights ahead, standing still, one hand pointing the way. Oscar would see Jamy retreat in the rearvision mirror and the next moment when he looked ahead, there the boy would be again.
Traffic was sparse, and thinned further as they wound past the light-industrial buildings of the Valley down into the riverside suburbs. The sun was a harsh but heatless winter light that made him squint.
Jamy appeared on a corner near a smashed telephone box. He raised a hand and gestured for Oscar to slow and turn down into a side street. As he passed the boy, Oscar could see his thin, pale fingers shaking.
They stopped on the verge of an overgrown park. Oscar knew it, though he’d not been here for years. He, Sabine, Jon, and Leonie had visited once for a boozy Sunday picnic. Above the thigh-high grass rode the blackened tips of children’s play equipment, scorched by a long-ago fire. Oscar and Zoe dismounted. Jamy waited in the grass and gestured for Oscar to follow. Oscar looked at Zoe; she nodded.
The boy’s passage didn’t disturb the grass as he led the way. Oscar plowed through it, feeling his feet squelch as the sodden ground let cold liquid run into his shoes. Zoe followed.
Ahead, on the far side of the lake of grass, was a row of massive fig trees. Oscar recalled how inviting they had once looked, their wide canopies offering cool shade under which picnickers could lounge while their children climbed the friendly limbs. But now the trees were untended and wild: their domelike canopies were lushly dark, and their lowest branches hung down almost to the tips of the thigh-high grass. Beyond them, the river.
Jamy walked toward the third tree and cast a look back to be sure Oscar was following. The boy neither rushed nor tarried, a condemned man’s pace. The ground smelled spoiled, overrich with moisture and rot. Oscar glanced back toward the road. There were no cars.
Jamy didn’t duck but passed
through the low-hanging coins of leaves into shadow. Oscar stooped. As he moved into the tree’s dark shadow, the lush grass gave way to stragglier yellow blades and eventually a mulchy floor of damp twigs, spongy rotten leaves, and stands of mushrooms. They were now in a private semidarkness that smelled of woody damp. Massive branches as gray as slate rose into a nightlike canopy; the few tiny glimpses of sky became the stars. Out of the sunlight, the air was cold. Jamy waited.
The trunk rose from the ground like a giant, fluted wrist twelve feet wide; from it struck a wild spiral of huge roots, each emerging from the trunk at shoulder height, writhing and curling out to a good ten paces from the trunk before plunging down into the black carpet of leaves. These buttress walls of live wood were covered with graffiti, a thousand carved initials, but none was fresh. In toward the trunk, the tall roots formed twisting trenches that seemed to descend to burrows and secret places.
Jamy led them toward the trunk.
“It smells,” Zoe said quietly.
It was worse than that. The air was becoming thick with sweet rot. Somewhere, flies buzzed.
Jamy stepped into one of the tunnel-like alcoves between the roots and waited.
Oscar reached into a pocket and found his flashlight. Its circle of light was shockingly bright in the gloom. He looked up at Zoe.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
They went into the strange tunnel, crouching where a loop of root as thick as his thigh curled over its sisters. Oscar played the flashlight down the slick passage of wood, but it curled away into darkness. He touched the smooth bark to steady himself; it had the uncomfortable feel of animal hide. The buzzing grew louder, like the hum from a midnight hive. They stooped lower, duck-walking into the twist and downward into the earth. The smell grew stronger: spoiled meat.
The roots now rode in all directions, forming a warped, slick shaft that was almost erotic yet utterly repulsive and claustrophobic. Things with many legs scuttled away from Oscar’s flashlight beam. They were forced to crawl. Finally, the tunnel stopped. A metal dinner tray blocked the way; on it was printed a sketch of Melbourne’s Carlton Gardens. The stench was almost overpowering in the clogged air. Oscar’s stomach spasmed. He looked around at Zoe; she nodded grimly—do it. He gritted his teeth and pulled aside the tray.
The Broken Ones Page 33
