Orpheus and the Pearl & Nevermore

by Kim Paffenroth;David Dunwoody

  He rifled through a drawer at his waist. "We need to find your body. We have you, so it won't be too difficult. I only hope we get to it before further harm is done."

  Jean was in the doorway, drink in hand. "Malcolm."

  "Not now," Saul said brusquely.

  Jean stared at him, at the jars on the counter. His eyelids fluttered. "Is that---is that Red Death?" He pointed at the crimson jar. "What are you doing with that?"

  Glass fell somewhere in the rear of the house.

  Saul spun around, knocking the purple jar from the counter. His hand shot out to catch it. "Quiet!" he hissed, and Jean's half-opened mouth snapped shut.

  Jean turned in the doorway, then turned back, his eyes like saucers. The three of them listened. Malcolm tried to seek out the smaller sounds in the house, searching for footfalls on carpet, but all he could hear was the rain and the breathing of the other two.

  The lights went out.

  Jean screamed. His shadow bolted across the kitchen, toward the front. Saul caught him, and Malcolm heard the muffled sounds of their wrestling, heard Saul whispering, "The fuse box is that way! We can't go that way!"

  They all knew it was the cadaver.

  Saul pulled Jean back toward the next room, and the floor creaked---the sound was answered by another from the front hall. The cadaver had entered from the back and slipped down the hallway. It hadn't barreled mindlessly into the kitchen, it had taken out the lights. It was stalking them.

  Malcolm scanned the darkness. The thing couldn't have followed me to Jean's, waited, and then followed us here, could it? Malcolm's being was chilled by the realization that the body wasn't merely a rogue vessel, but was possessed of its own intellect. It had been stripped of his mind, had shed his flesh, and was becoming something else---joining some other order between life and death.

  Then he saw it,---standing there in the doorway leading from the front hall, the glowing brand on its forehead.

  Jean and Saul didn't react. Couldn't they see it? Malcolm stared through the shadows into their vacant eyes. They couldn't see a goddamn thing! It's there! IT'S RIGHT THERE!

  With a sound like thunder, the cadaver charged into the room.

  It ran full-force into Saul. He crashed into Jean, and they went down in a pile, the cadaver spilling over the two men. Screams erupted. All Malcolm could see now was a flurry of thrashing black limbs, and he was panicking---light bloomed at the edges of his spectral vision, and the sounds of the struggle assaulted his sense of orientation. He had begun to think of himself as a person again, standing and talking there in the kitchen. He was suddenly and keenly aware of his formlessness as the screams of Jean and Saul grew distant. Still yourself. Focus!

  Malcolm hovered over the cadaver's back. He imagined his hands, raised over the thing in balled fists, and saw ectoplasm forming in the air. The noise in the room sharpened: shoes squeaking across linoleum, snapping teeth. "GET HIM OFF!" Jean wailed. Saul had to be getting the worst of it. And he wasn't making any sound at all.

  Malcolm brought his fists down between the cadaver's shoulder blades. He vaguely felt the contact---numbness on numbness---but the cadaver shot bolt upright and turned its fiery third eye to face him.

  It was looking right through him. That didn't matter, because Saul and Jean were wriggling out from under the thing and clawing their way into the next room.

  Malcolm reached for the cadaver's face, its raw bleeding flesh puckered and wrinkled like that of an old man. He brushed his fingertips across the bridge of its nose. The thing grunted. I'm here. Look for me.

  It grunted again, and one dark claw swept through the space where Saul had been. The cadaver whirled and was on its feet. From the darkness beyond, Saul cried, "Jean! Come here, Jean!"

  The cadaver lurched forward, and as soon as Malcolm heard Jean's strangled gasp, he could see a silhouette there and knew the thing had him.

  Saul's shadow leapt into the fray. Jean was pushed back, and the cadaver caught hold of the older man, then threw him back into the other room, grabbing Jean once more.

  Footsteps thumping on carpet. Saul, coming around through the hall...? The footsteps entered the kitchen opposite Jean and the cadaver. Malcolm saw Saul at the counter. He was going after the jars. Of course! But then he was gone, and Malcolm heard the front door striking the wall as it flew open, and the porch door clattered noisily seconds later. Saul had fled.

  Light swam around Malcolm as he looked back at Jean. He heard meat tearing, Jean gurgling. The cadaver let out a low moan as it buried its face in Jean's body.

  When his senses returned, he wasn't sure at first. Though he could again see the details of the kitchen, it was startlingly bright.

  Then he saw what was left of Jean.

  It had been a feast. As with the policewoman, his flesh had been peeled away in strips. Red lines welled in vertical patterns on the thin layer of meat still clinging to Jean's bones. The cadaver had gorged itself. In the blood covering the floor, Malcolm saw the impression where the thing had sat cross-legged, like a child, beside Jean's corpse. He saw the footprints marking its exit.

  It's morning. Jean is dead. Saul is gone. I'm alone.

  He never would have expected Saul to flee, he had seen things most people didn't believe in. Malcolm recalled the cadaver hurling Saul away to get at Jean. Lucky.

  Or...

  He was still "tethered" in some way to the cadaver, and he had been angry at Jean. He'd blamed him for what happened last night, and even though it wasn't true, he now knew that Jean's psychic bullshit had helped Leo justify his affair. It was as if the cadaver had known, and had felt the same rage.

  If he and the cadaver were connected that intimately, what then of the attack on the police officers? Malcolm hadn't had anything to do with that. They'd simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The thing was driven to feed, that was all, whether or not he gave it direction. But now he was sure he had focused it on Jean. I'm so sorry. You were trying to help.

  He thought about Ray. That could only have been grim circumstance. Yes, he'd been upset at Ray for being preoccupied with Bonnie, but---

  Bonnie.

  She was going to Malcolm's this morning. Maybe right now.

  The clock on the microwave read 9:30. He still had time. He didn't know what he was going to do. She is going to see it. She would see the blood in the hall, and she was a police detective. When neither Malcolm nor Ray responded to her pounding she would kick the door in. I have to be there. He had to explain it to her, somehow, before her colleagues ran the bloody fingerprints or---worse yet---found the cadaver.

  Then he thought of something else: What if it's gone after Leo?

  Jesus. Jesus. He willed himself to stay focused. If that's true... go to Bonnie. Get Bonnie. Get the police. A few bullets may not have been able to stop the thing, but it was still flesh and blood. It had to have a breaking point.

  As he exited the kitchen, he noticed the jars on the counter. Only the Red Death was missing.

  The sky was still bloated and gray, and a light drizzle fell as he moved down the street. The gutters were overflowing. It had been one hell of a downpour.

  He saw police on Westmore. They surrounded the mouth of the alley where the patrol officers had been killed. He went to the other side of the street. If they were there, it was only a matter of time before they found the scene around the corner, assuming 911 hadn't already been called hours ago. God, maybe Bonnie's already here, on the job. He hastened his progress, crossing the street again as he passed the crime scene. He wondered what they were making of it, two cops lying half-devoured in broad daylight.

  To think he was seeking out a detective now, after a night of the walking dead and would-be psychics. He had accepted this new reality so easily. He supposed there was no alternative, except maybe to go mad---if the dead were capable of such things---and he suspected he was. Maybe he was mad already, having gone to Jean and Saul first, but he'd had his reasons. It had made sense in the new w
orld.

  There were no police around his building. It was Saturday morning---maybe none of his neighbors had left their apartments yet, hadn't seen the mess. That gave him a little time to prepare for Bonnie, and figure out just how he was going to get through to her. With a feeling of hope, he went up the steps and through the entrance.

  His door was open, but he'd left it that way. Malcolm passed over dried copper stains and stopped in the doorway.

  She was there. She was standing over Ray, hands on her face, her mouth stretched open in s silent scream. Tears streaked the collar of her jacket. She'd been there a while.

  The memory of finding his brother, undiminished, unfiltered, came back all at once. Malcolm trembled in space. He searched the room. There was nothing to write in, or with, except... and he refused, absolutely refused. Then he thought again of Leo. He had to get Bonnie over there now.

  Malcolm moved to the couch. He cast himself downward, beside Ray. He didn't look at him. He concentrated on the blood that covered everything. He concentrated on the thought of a finger dipping into a dark pool.

  She must not have noticed at first, the first vertical line being traced on Ray's forearm. Then the line took a sharp turn. Bonnie's breath caught in her throat. She stumbled back, shaking the tears from her eyes. Another character was printed beside the first. Then another.

  L E O

  "R-Ray?"

  Malcolm looked up in surprise. Bonnie wrung her hands and stepped closer, and repeated, "Ray?"

  Just as well she thought that. Maybe it would bring her some small measure of comfort. Jean had been right about one thing---Bonnie loved Ray.

  "Leo. What do you mean, Leo? Ray?"

  There wasn't time now to explain further. Malcolm printed the name again, this time on Ray's cheek. His digits made gentle impressions in the pale skin. For the first time, he noticed that Ray's hair was going gray on the sides. Even if he could have wept, it would have done nothing. He wanted to tear himself in half.

  "Leo? Where is he?" Bonnie pulled her gun from her jacket. Malcolm saw the transformation occur, saw her emotions retreating as she raised the weapon and edged toward the kitchenette. "Is anyone here? Come out!" She glanced over the counter and, seeing nothing, moved toward the bedroom door.

  She nudged it open with the back of her hand. "Malcolm?" He heard her sigh---she must have been relieved to find the room empty. She turned back. "Ray? Where's Malcolm? Is he with Leo?" She went back to the body. "I'm going to Leo's. Is that right? Can you tell me? Are you still here?"

  Malcolm silently urged her from the hall outside. Finally she came. She moved with purpose, and he had to cast himself out quickly to keep up with her. Leaving the building, she pulled out her phone. He heard her calling in the address and some other numbers, numbers that meant Ray had been ripped apart, as she got into her car by the curb.

  Shit! He couldn't ride with her. Malcolm had to get to Leo's on foot, or whatever he had. He looked through the windshield at Bonnie, saw her pulling the runny mascara from her face with her fingers, dropping the gun in the passenger seat. Then she started the car and tore out of the gutter, sending a sheet of rainwater through Malcolm.

  He moved after her at a runner's pace, but he felt like he was slogging through mud. Maybe he was relying too much on his orientation on the physical plane, maybe he could travel at the speed of thought if he only knew how, but he didn't. So he chased Bonnie's car and when it accelerated from sight, he followed the streets he used to walk when he was alive.

  He saw Bonnie's car, parked and empty, and slowed as he approached the entrance to Leo's building. It had been weeks since he'd seen Leo, heard his voice, or even read his words. And Leo would never see him again. So, then. No awkward overtures, not even a last shouting match. The matter was finished. Malcolm didn't know how to feel about that. He wasn't sure that the living could have arranged a more satisfying resolution.

  He went in. Leo's place was on the first floor, last door on the right. It was closed. Malcolm passed through.

  Same old place. Same magazines piled on the couch cushion nearest the door, same big blue candle sitting unlit on the kitchen counter. He tried to imagine that familiar old smell and found he couldn't.

  Voices from the back. Malcolm went down the hall.

  Bonnie was in Leo's room. She was in his face, screaming as he stood against a half-tilted desk chair, as if he'd been roused from work by her screaming. "What happened? TELL ME!"

  "I don't know what you're talking about! Calm the hell down!"

  "He told me!" Bonnie's voice was ragged. She was crying again. "He told me! Now you can be a friend, and talk to me, or I can take you in and you can fucking talk to them!"

  She grabbed Leo's wrist. He jerked away. His ankle caught the leg of the chair and he fell against the wall. Pages from a wall calendar tore away under his shoulder. "Bonnie! I can't talk to you until you talk to me! What happened to Ray? Is Malcolm all right?"

  "I don't know where Malcolm is," she snapped. "Maybe you do."

  Malcolm was almost between them now, trying to think of something, anything, to let them know: I'm here!

  "I don't know anything!" He wormed along the wall as she grabbed handfuls of his sweater. "You're crazy," he breathed.

  "What?" She reached into her jacket. Leo tried to shove past her. She knocked him back, into the window blinds, with a crash. His face flushed, and his hand closed into a fist. For a second, Bonnie's eyes widened.

  The cadaver's arms plowed through the blinds with a shriek of glass, wrapping around Leo's chest, jerking him back into---through---the window. Glass crunched and spilled onto the carpet as the blinds were warped out of shape. The dead man's head pushed through, blood dribbling from its lipless mouth. Bonnie stood frozen as she watched Leo being pulled out in a tangle of vinyl and flesh.

  Light and sound surrounded Malcolm, and he lost sight of Leo's sneakers as they kicked in the air. He felt like he was being swept away by a funeral dirge. Vaguely, he picked out the front door banging open. Voices, again, this time Bonnie and someone else.

  Saul!

  Malcolm focused in and saw the man cradling Bonnie, turning her away from the window. "It took him?" Saul barked. "It took him? Alive?"

  "I don't know!" Bonnie sobbed.

  "It's all right." He held her against his chest.

  "How did you know?" Her sobbing was muffled now. Malcolm stared into Saul's eyes, and Saul stared back.

  "I followed him," Saul said. "He killed Jean last night. And Ray."

  "Was it..."

  "It was Malcolm," Saul said, still looking at the ghost.

  What are you doing? Malcolm cried.

  "Malcolm? It looked like him. A little. But why?"

  "It would be best if I took it from here," Saul said. His gaze held nothing but contempt. It seemed to say to Malcolm, Why do you still believe in people?

  Malcolm, it seemed, had overlooked the obvious yet again.

  He watched without feeling as his murderer ushered Bonnie from the room. "I'm going with you," she was saying. "Whatever's going on, whatever you're going to do, I'm going with you. Ray spoke to me."

  She sounded just like poor Jean---so hopeful, so excited to finally have had a haunting of her very own. As if there were really any answers, any comfort in the knowledge of spirits. It only meant that miserable existence didn't end with death.

  Malcolm cast himself after them. Saul was glancing over his shoulder as he took Bonnie to the front door. "We should go alone," he said, eyes fixed on Malcolm. "Very bad things could happen if we didn't."

  Malcolm stopped. Who is he threatening? Is he going to hurt her? Leo, his lover?

  "Good," Saul said, and he and Bonnie left.

  Who had Saul followed---Malcolm or the cadaver? He'd shadowed the ghost, most likely; would have been far safer, and both inevitably ended up in the same place anyway. Malcolm had taken the thing off autopilot again when he returned to consciousness that morning, and had led it to Leo, bri
nging his worst fears to fruition. Only now it was so much worse.

  He turned from the front door and went back to the bedroom window. There was a small lawn in the back of the building. Beyond a chain-link fence, the lawn sloped downward into what looked like a drainage ditch. Beyond that, a dense spread of trees. Malcolm passed through the wall and went to the fence. The ditch had a small river of rainwater in it, flowing into a large concrete pipe with an iron grate. There were holes in the fence. The cadaver could have gone down there to feed.

  Malcolm went through the fence and to the edge of the water. No sign of the cadaver or Leo. Again he looked at the big pipe. From this angle he could see that the iron grate was actually partially loose, pried away from the opening. He moved into the water, for just a second he expected to splash down and encounter icy resistance. There was none, and he cast himself forth. The rushing water caught the ectoplasm, and he was wrenched violently forward. Jesus! The ectoplasm broke apart, and he was in the middle of the ditch, barely atop the water. Okay. Careful now. Don't cast too far. He didn't want to be sucked right past them, if they were in the pipe.

  Into the darkness. Sound cascading off the concrete walls. Malcolm focused himself forward. He didn't see them, not yet. He wondered what Saul's intentions were. It didn't seem like he could track the cadaver without the ghost's help.

  Unless he can track Leo.

  Who knew what Saul was capable of? All those weird jars of color in his kitchen. Yellow Sign, Red Death. He'd taken the Red Death with him. Why? Did I ever known the real Saul? It didn't seem that the mentor he'd yearned for was ever there. Not for him, anyway. For Leo, yes.

  Don't think about Leo. Don't get angry. He saw light streaming into the tunnel from fissures in the ceiling, through which dangled soggy strands of blanched grass. The morning light struck through a brownish haze in the tunnel, and Malcolm became aware of how dark the water was down here. Tendrils of other fluids snaked along the surface, oily, foul-looking stuff. It swam around the edges of a concrete partition that looked half-finished. Lengths of rebar jutted out from it, and Malcolm saw something caught on one of them. It was a ragged thing, like snakeskin, blood gleaming on its surface. It was cadaver-skin.