Garden of Evil

by Graham Masterton

  Summer came into the kitchen but Jim quickly pushed her out again. ‘You don’t want to see this, sweetheart.’

  Back in the living room, Bethany said, ‘They won’t come back, will they, Daddy? Please say they won’t come back.’

  Jim said, ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘What if they’re still out there, waiting for us?’ said Jesmeka Watson. ‘If they’re still out there, how are we going to get back home?’

  ‘How do we know we even got homes to go back to?’ said Al Alvarez. ‘And there’s no phones, so there’s no way that we can check.’

  Jim went out on to the balcony. Although the back yard was thickly screened by trees, he could see that fires were burning from one side of the city to the other. And there was such a silence. No traffic, on the freeways. No sirens. No helicopters. No passenger planes landing and taking off from LAX.

  All he could hear was an occasional sarcastic caw, from that pestilential crow.

  Bethany came out to join him. ‘What are we going to do, Daddy? Do you think that Mommy’s OK?’

  Jim put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Where your mom lives – sure, I’m sure she’ll be fine.’

  ‘But what are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know, Bethany. I really don’t.’

  ‘We can’t stay here for ever, can we? Maybe we should try to get away. These dead people can’t be everywhere, can they?’

  ‘I don’t know that, either. The Reverend Silence said there were millions of them. He said that God cursed Lilith’s children, so that a hundred of them would die every day. If you believe that really happened, that adds up to thirty-six and a half million every thousand years, and how many thousands of years is it since Lilith was thrown out of the Garden of Eden?

  ‘They could be everywhere,’ he told her. ‘Maybe there’s no escaping them.’

  DaJon Johnson and Rudy Cascarelli came out on to the balcony, too.

  ‘You want to check this out, Mr Rook.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? What is it now?’

  ‘We eyeballed the road outside, to see if those dead-alives had taken a powder.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Come and check it out for yourself.’

  Jim followed them through the living room and out to the hallway. They had shifted the bureau to one side so that they could open the front door, although they had kept the door locked and Joe Chang was standing beside it with his arms folded like a nightclub bouncer.

  He unlocked it, although he kept the security chain fastened until he had taken a quick look outside. ‘OK, sir. It looks like it’s clear.’

  Jim stepped out on to the landing. He went to the railing and looked down. Hundreds of white-robed figures were assembled in the road, silent, unmoving, staring back up at him. When he leaned over a little more, he could see that they were crowded on the landing outside Ricky and Nadine’s front door, too, and up the steps that led to Summer’s apartment.

  ‘Looks like they’re prepared to wait for as long as it takes,’ said Rudy Cascarelli. ‘How soon before we run out of food?’

  ‘Maybe a day,’ said Jim. ‘I haven’t been to the store for two weeks. Seventeen people can’t survive on two Hungry-Man Boneless Chicken Dinners for very long.’

  DaJon Johnson said, ‘This is really off the hook, man. Either they goin’ to starve us out or else we try to make a break for it and they rip us to bits. I mean, how far do you think we goin’ to get?’

  Jim was still standing on the landing when Ricky came out. He saw the silent crowd of white-robed figures waiting in the road, and he said, ‘Shit.’

  ‘What is it, Ricky?’

  ‘I’m in a fix, Jim. What in the name of God am I going to do now?’

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘What kind of a fix?’ Jim asked him. ‘What situation could possibly be worse than this is already?’

  ‘It’s Nadine. She’s diabetic. She’s starting to go into a coma and she needs her insulin.’

  ‘Oh, God. Well – there’s a couple of cans of Mountain Dew Throwback in the fridge. That should help. It has real sugar in it.’

  ‘She has to have her insulin, Jim. It’s her type of diabetes. She didn’t bring any up here with her because she didn’t think that we’d be staying for long.’

  Jim went back inside. Nadine was lying on his bed, with her eyes half closed, as if she were drowsy. Her cheeks were pale, except for those two lurid spots of rouge, and her forehead was glossy with perspiration. Summer was sitting on the bed next to her, holding her hand.

  ‘Jim . . .’ said Nadine, hoarsely. ‘Sorry to be such a nuisance. All I need is my shot.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Nadine. We’ll sort something out for you. Bethany . . . would you bring me a can of that Mountain Dew Throwback out of the icebox? No, on second thought, Rudy, would you get it for me?’ He didn’t know if Kyle Baxter and Tommy Makovicka had finished clearing out the sink yet, and dropping the severed hands into the trash.

  Ricky said, ‘I got to do something, Jim. If she doesn’t get her shot in twenty minutes she’s going to go into a coma and then she could die.’

  Jim went back through the living room and out on to the balcony, where Hunni Robards and Jesmeka Watson were keeping watch, and smoking at the same time.

  Jim said, ‘Any sign of those dead-alives back here?’

  Jesmeka Watson shook her head. ‘Not yet, sir, Mr Rook.’

  He peered down into the yard, but it was deserted. Between the front of the apartment building and the back stood a ten-foot wooden fence, with a gate in it, but the gate was padlocked and the white-robed figures wouldn’t have been able to climb over. He could still see Santana’s shovel down there, next to a half-dug gopher hole, which he must have dropped when the Silences came to get him.

  He leaned over the balcony even further, and saw that there was a drainpipe which ran down from the guttering around the roof, and down to the ground. It looked as if it were just within reach, and of course it was the same distance away from Ricky and Nadine’s balcony on the first floor below them.

  ‘This is what we do,’ he said, beckoning to Ricky. ‘We climb down, we get Nadine’s insulin. We climb back up again.’

  ‘Who do you think I am, man? Cheetah?’

  ‘It’s the only way, Ricky. We can’t go out front because they’ll rip us to shreds.’

  Ricky looked down into the back yard and puffed out his cheeks. ‘Guess you’re right. OK, then – let’s do it. But I fall and break my fuckin’ neck I’m never going to forgive you. And Nadine’s shots are in the bathroom cabinet, in case I do.’

  Jim went to the very end of the balcony, dragged a chair across to the railing, and climbed up on to it, swaying backward and forward for a few moments like a high-wire walker to balance himself. Then he reached out with his right hand until he managed to get a grip on the drainpipe. He shook it, as much as he could, to feel that it wasn’t too loose. Briar Cliff Apartments hadn’t been built to a very high standard, and he didn’t want the pipe coming away from the wall when they were halfway down it.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Ready or not.’

  With that, he swung sideways across the wall and grabbed hold of the drainpipe with his left hand. The drainpipe lurched and his face was showered with dried mortar, and for a split-second he thought that the brackets were going to give way. He hung there for a few moments, not moving, trying to blink the grit out of his eyes and spit it out his mouth, but the drainpipe’s fixings stayed firm.

  ‘OK, Ricky,’ he said. ‘I think it’s going to hold. I’m going down.’

  Jerkily, he slid down the drainpipe, past Summer’s balcony and down to Ricky and Nadine’s apartment. Even though Ricky and Nadine were on the first floor, there was still at least an eight-foot drop from their balcony railing to the stone-flagged patio below. Jim had to reach out with his left hand and get a grip on the edge of their wall, and then stretch out his left leg until his foot found the top of the railing. If he had fallen backward, he could
have broken his spine or cracked his skull.

  Ricky was clambering down the drainpipe, too, making blowing noises like a horse.

  ‘Jesus, can’t stop!’ he panted, and the sole of his sneaker hit Jim on the top of the head. Jim pulled himself sideways and jumped over the balcony railing, landing on Nadine’s sunlounger and toppling it sideways. He hadn’t even managed to get up off the tiles before Ricky fell on top of him. The two of them lay sprawled there for a moment, trying to get their breath back.

  The sliding door to Ricky and Nadine’s apartment was already half open, so they stepped inside. It was a quarter of seven now, and beginning to grow dark, and the living room was gloomy. The kitchen door was ajar and through the Venetian blinds they could see the white-robed figures who were crowded on the landing outside. Some of them had rags or scarves tied around their heads, others had tall pointed hoods like Klansmen. None of them were moving or making a sound, just waiting.

  Ricky sniffed and said, ‘How in the name of hell are we going to get away from those creeps?’

  ‘Let’s think about that later, after we’ve given Nadine her shot.’

  ‘But you don’t have the faintest fuckin’ idea, do you?’

  ‘No, Ricky, I don’t, and if that’s your way of implying that this is all my fault, then, yes, it is, and if I thought that it would help if I went out there and gave myself up to them, then I would. But, quite honestly, I think it would only make things worse.’

  Ricky slapped Jim’s shoulder and said, ‘Aw, come on, Jim. I’m not really blaming you. Most of us do things in life with good intentions that turn out to be shit.’

  ‘We don’t all do things that end up with hundreds of people getting killed and half of Los Angeles burning down.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, buddy. Sometimes we do things worse than that. My old man, he was assistant flight engineer on Bockscar, the day they dropped the A-bomb on Nagasaki.’ He popped his fingers and said, ‘Seventy thousand people killed, just like that – men, women and little kids.’

  He crossed over to the hallway and opened the bathroom door. There was no window in the first-floor bathroom so he had to switch on the light. Jim waited for him in the center of the living room, looking at some of his paintings and his sculptures. The scratty red parakeet was still sitting on its perch, and when he came up close to its bars it made a harsh and hostile noise in its throat and screeched out, ‘Silence!’

  ‘Oh, get stuffed!’ Jim told it.

  Ricky opened the bathroom door a little wider as he came out, and it was then that the light fell for the briefest of moments on the painting of The Storyteller, still standing on its easel.

  To Jim’s surprise, it no longer looked like Ba’al, with its horns and its gray gleaming skin, but he recognized the new face at once. It was an elderly man, with a neat white beard. His expression was serious, but there was something in his eyes which was both sympathetic and knowing. It was Father Michael, the same priest that Jim had tried to contact with no success when he was upstairs in his bedroom.

  Jim approached the portrait slowly and stared at it. The eyes looked back at him with infinite compassion. However much Ricky grumbled or cussed or smoked, he was a brilliant painter. But how on earth had he managed to paint such an exact likeness of Father Michael? So far as Jim knew, Ricky had never met Father Michael, and he was long dead now.

  He reached out and touched the painting with his fingertips. The paint was still sticky, so Ricky must have painted it only a few hours ago.

  Ricky switched off the bathroom light and came over with a bottle of insulin and a hypodermic. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘Now let’s try to shin back up that fuckin’ drainpipe!’

  Jim pointed to The Storyteller with his thumb. ‘When did you paint this? It’s so weird. It’s an exact likeness of the dead priest I was trying to contact.’

  Ricky squinted at the painting and said, ‘Never.’

  ‘What do you mean, “never”? It’s here, I’m looking at it. The oil-paint’s still fresh.’

  ‘I never painted that, man. I never saw that old geezer before in my life. The last time I looked at that portrait, it was that devil guy.’

  This is the only way open, said Father Michael.

  Ricky turned to Jim and said, ‘What?’

  This is the only way open. They forgot that they had used this painting so that Ba’al could begin to make his reappearance. They remembered the smoke, they remembered the paintings in the classroom, they remembered the television and the door to the spirit world. But they forgot The Storyteller.

  ‘Did you say that?’ said Ricky.

  Jim was staring at the painting of Father Michael in disbelief. Spirits had talked to him scores of times, both benign and malevolent, but they were mostly inside his own head. He had heard the wind blowing and birds singing in landscape paintings, and the sound of the ocean in seascapes; but he had never been talked to, out loud, by anybody’s portrait.

  You can defeat Sammael, said Father Michael. His voice echoed, as if he were speaking inside an empty room, and in a way he was. There is a way.

  ‘Shit, man, I don’t believe this,’ said Ricky. ‘Are you ventriloquiserating or something?’

  Jim slowly shook his head, still staring at Father Michael. ‘It’s the painting, Ricky. It’s the painting that’s talking to us. Your Storyteller.’

  ‘Aw, come on, Jim. You’re putting me on. You’re throwing your voice like that Achmed the Dead Terrorist guy. Look – let’s go. We don’t have time for this. We need to get this shot back to Nadine.’

  ‘Ricky, I’m serious. Father Michael is talking to me through your painting because it’s the only way that he can do it.’

  ‘Father Michael,’ said Ricky, with exaggerated skepticism.

  ‘That’s right, Father Michael. The priest who came to talk to us after my dad committed suicide.’

  ‘Your dead dad who is now upstairs alive.’

  ‘That’s right. And that’s the whole point. Life and death have been turned upside down.’

  You have to make the ultimate sacrifice, Jim. That is the only way.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Ricky, in despair. ‘He’s talkin’ to himself now, for Christ’s sake!’

  You have to give up your Paradise. You have to give up the people you so desperately wanted to come back to life.

  ‘You mean my father? And Bethany?’

  When people die, Jim, they are dead. The only immortality is in heaven or hell. People cannot come back and walk the earth as if they were still alive. It is against all nature. It is against the will of God.

  ‘Hey, what about me?’ said Ricky. ‘I was dead, too, wasn’t I? And so was Santana. You can’t give me up, man. I don’t want to be fuckin’ dead. Not again.’

  Father Michael said, You know on whose behalf I am speaking, don’t you, Jim? You cannot look upon His face, but you can hear His voice through me. He has seen the work of Ba’al and of Sammael, and of the serpent, too. He gave the children of Eve the chance to show their devotion to Him by resisting temptation. But again the fruit of the tree of knowledge proved irresistible.

  Again the blandishments of Ba’al proved too alluring for you to show self-restraint and consideration for others.

  You have seen the result – the dead children of Lilith have risen from the grave as a great and murderous multitude, and are taking out their bitterness on the living children of Eve. Many hundreds are already dead, and countless more will die before Ba’al has taken them all down to his dominion, in hell.

  ‘But what can I do?’ said Jim. ‘I started it. I allowed it to happen. How can I stop it?’

  You must give up your Paradise and renounce your gift.

  ‘What?’

  You must renounce your gift to see spirits, and demons, and other manifestations, and you must renounce it for ever, for the rest of your life.

  ‘What good will that do?’

  The children of Lilith can onl
y continue to walk the earth as long as you have the gift to see them – just like the people you have brought back to life. Ba’al gave you the power to bring them back, but power is meaningless without vision.

  ‘Jim,’ said Ricky. ‘Do you believe this shit? Whoever this is, he wants me dead again, man, and you’re not going to do that to me, are you? And – look – we have to get this insulin up to Nadine. We can’t waste any more time talking to a goddamned painting. It’s insane!’

  Take your thirteen disciples and have them hold hands in a circle as they did before. Have them recite this incantation three times, Ba’al be gone, Sammael be gone, Lilith be gone. Then say, may my eyes be closed to the world of spirits for ever.

  ‘And that’s it? All of those dead-alive people will disappear?’

  They will return to the graves from which you summoned them, yes.

  ‘But what about all of those people that they’ve torn to pieces?’

  The dead must remain dead, except only for the grace of God.

  ‘But what if I can’t decide what to do? You’re asking me to sacrifice my daughter! You’re asking me to sacrifice my father! You’re asking me to sacrifice my friend!’

  If you do nothing, your loved ones will stay alive for as long as they can escape the children of Lilith. But the whole world will be visited by the greatest human disaster ever known.

  ‘But how can that be my responsibility? How can that be up to me? I’m only a goddamned English teacher, not a god!’

  You are the only one who can see spirits. You are the only one who can talk to the dead. You are the only one who can make bargains with demons. That is your gift, and your curse.

  ‘I didn’t ask for it, though, did I?

  Great musicians never ask for their talent. Neither do artists, nor scientists, nor writers. But whether you want it or not, every gift comes with the responsibility to use it wisely. A great gift, used selfishly, can cause catastrophe.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ growled Ricky. ‘You do whatever you like, Jim, but I’m not going to be lectured by one of my own fuckin’ pictures, even if I didn’t paint it.’