Orpheus and the Pearl & Nevermore

by Kim Paffenroth;David Dunwoody

  Malcolm passed through the partition and into a new tunnel, this one stained and splattered with waste. He realized where he was. This was part of the defunct storm-water system that led to Old Valley Municipal. There was evidence of the private developer's half-hearted attempts to seal it off, but sure enough, it was the new system that had led Malcolm here. Ray wouldn't have had any trouble winning this one. The water was black with whatever the developer was dumping. Another tunnel branched off from it, sloping upward toward the surface. Malcolm ascended it, as he assumed the cadaver had, and emerged from a hole in the middle of the woods.

  The drizzle had subsided, though the sky was still suffused with gray. He saw the remnants of the old treatment plant through the trees. He heard a distant that may have been the cry of a bird, or a man. Leo's alive. It wants him, just like I did.

  Brown pools dotted the ground surrounding the plant. Above-ground tanks and pumping stations, threaded with dense pipe-works and unhealthy-looking vines, rose from the spoiled earth. Malcolm listened intently. He heard another cry, and saw a large black bird sitting atop one of the tanks. It looked directly at him and shrieked. When he drew closer, it lit into the air and was gone.

  A metal door in the side of the tank lay open. Malcolm entered into its shadows. Water dripping noisily from the ceiling inside. He could make out a steel walkway, going over a pool that must have been used to remove sediment. It was half-full of gray water gone black.

  Malcolm crossed the walkway. A door on the opposite side led into a narrow stairwell, which led him below ground again. He entered an unlit corridor, he was barely able to make out any detail from the light trickling down the stairs. Unable to feel the floor or walls, he almost felt lost in a limitless void---until he heard Saul's voice bouncing down the hall.

  A flashlight's beam cut through the darkness some yards away. Malcolm moved to the wall, slipping partway into its steel-and-earth structure to conceal himself, as Saul and Bonnie searched the corridor. Bonnie tried a door while Saul consulted a control box in the opposite wall. A second later, buzzing lights flickered to life on the ceiling.

  Bonnie jiggled the handle on the door. "Look at the floor." She pointed out a set of damp prints with her gun. "They went in here." She brought the butt of the gun down on the handle and wrenched the door open with a groan. "Down again."

  "Let me go first."

  "Saul, what the hell is going on?"

  "Malcolm..." Saul cocked his head. He glanced subtly to a side, and he saw the ghost.

  "He is beyond help, that's all I know." He stepped back, allowing Bonnie to take point. When she went through the door, Saul turned to Malcolm, and the ghost swept into his face. Saul showed no fear. "I lied. I can help you, and I will. You'll be at pace."

  WHAT DID YOU DO?

  "It wasn't my fault," Saul sighed. "I knew Jean was going to slip you Yellow Sign at the Arms. I didn't need any spirit guides to tell me, it was his nature. He didn't know about Leo and I. Poor Jean, always wanting to be involved.

  "So I brought a little Red Death. I put it in your drink before he added the Sign. It tastes sweet, and goes down like silk. It doesn't feel like what it is. I gave you just the right amount, but he must have used too little Sign for them to fuse properly."

  WHAT DID YOU DO? Malcolm's senses were wavering. Saul knew it, too, his calm was causing Malcolm to come unhinged all the quicker.

  "Yellow Sign clears and focuses the third eye. Red Death corrodes it. A cocktail unknown to western doctors and detectives alike. You should have been drawn out completely when their combined effects overtook you, but you're still tethered to the cadaver, snagged on some bit of temporal filth on that lens.

  "I can't pull you free now. And it obviously can't pull you back in. I think the poor thing's just an empty vessel seeking substance. Nature abhors a vacuum, we remember." Reaching into the pockets of his coat, he produced a pair of hypodermic syringes, each filled with what could only be Red Death. "Two more doses ought to kill the brain for good."

  What will happen to me?

  "Truthfully, I don't know," Saul said. "And, really, I don't care."

  Malcolm had only his words at this point, he could no more stand in Saul's path than he could knock the son of a bitch out. So he spoke. He still loves me. That's why you did it.

  Saul laughed, but the laugh was a lie.

  Maybe he never loved you, Saul. Maybe it was all magic and potions.

  "No!"

  Then it was manipulation. You've made it your life's work. You're a monster.

  "I'll kill you!" Saul screamed.

  Bonnie called his name from the darkness. He stiffened. "I'll kill him," he snarled. "And her. I swear it."

  Then it was Bonnie who screamed.

  Saul's threats vanished as his eyes widened and he whispered, "Leo!"

  He raced through the door. Malcolm tore after him, through a waste-splattered passage that sloped and twisted downward, beneath lights that flickered and popped excitedly. Saul slipped and crashed against the wall. Malcolm shot past him, casting himself forward as quickly as he could. Leo!

  The sloping floor became level again after the next turn. There, Bonnie was in the grip of the cadaver. Leo was nowhere to be seen. The corpse's hands were wrapped around Bonnie's throat, and her gun lay on the floor below her dangling feet. Clawing at the cadaver's raw cheeks, pulling away strings of flesh, she gurgled Malcolm's name. Like Ray, she believed it was him. She wouldn't know otherwise until she was already dead, and maybe not even then.

  Leo emerged from an alcove behind the cadaver with a rusty pipe in his hands, and he brought it down on the cadaver's neck with all his strength. The thing buckled over, dropping Bonnie. As she hit the floor, her foot kicked the gun away.

  Saul rounded the corner. "Get away from it!"

  The cadaver turned to Leo, who hit it across the face with the pipe, sending shards of teeth flying from its mouth as it fell back.

  "Leo, get back!" Saul cried.

  Malcolm looked from Saul to the cadaver, then back. And focused.

  The cadaver straightened up. Leo stood between it and Bonnie, ready to strike again, but the thing turned to Saul.

  "No," the old man breathed. "Malcolm, stop it. Don't---you don't have it in you---"

  Leo snatched up Bonnie's gun, but she grabbed his arm and tugged him back. "No!" he said. "We can't leave him!"

  "Give me the gun!" Bonnie's shout reverberated through Malcolm as he watched the scene unfold.

  Leo handed the pistol over, and Bonnie tried to find a shot, but the cadaver was already upon Saul, seizing his head in both hands and lifting him off the floor. Saul's eyes fluttered in his face.

  The cadaver released him.

  At first Malcolm thought Saul had used some sort of secret command, but then the thing turned, and he saw the needle protruding from its chest just below the collarbone. The syringe was empty. The cadaver staggered, fell against the wall. Then the entire world began to transform---Malcolm's world, his perception---color draining away and sound fading. The poison was affecting him too. He fought to steady himself while the cadaver stumbled past him.

  It was after Bonnie and Leo again. They fled down the hall, deeper into the plant. Saul sat on the floor and held his head. "Almost...killed me. Malcolm..."

  He looked at the ghost. Saul was black-and-white now, his edges soft and indistinct. Malcolm's point of view yawed from side to side. Saul rose---he looked more confident than ever---and pulled the other syringe from his coat. "One more, Malcolm. Then it's over. You're over."

  His voice went in out, and then the thrumming chaos of the world around Malcolm---the spitting and crackling of the lights, the howls of the empty pipe-works, the distant pleas of the cadaver's prey---overwhelmed him. He couldn't see anymore. He felt Saul passing through him, heard the man mutter something. Malcolm fought to regain his foothold in the corporeal, he tried to clear his mind of panic over what would happen to Leo if the cadaver were left to its own devices,
and over what might happen to him if Saul landed that second needle in its back. One way or another, he didn't believe he was long for the world. He had to make sure he went out alone.

  The world resolved into a gray blur. He was able to make out the details of the corridor, and began moving sluggishly after the others.

  The corridor opened into a huge concrete vault. The others were on a grated platform overlooking a pool of waste. Bonnie and Leo coughed violently as they crowded against the railing. The fumes must have been terrible, but they were cornered by the cadaver and there was no other way out but the way they'd come. It stood uncertainly before them. Bonnie raised the gun. "Saul, move!"

  He was weaving back and forth behind the cadaver. Still stunned from the earlier attack, Saul was fighting to stay on his feet. He held out the syringe and yelled, "I have him! Here is his last moment!"

  The cadaver lunged at Bonnie. The gun went off in its face. It spun away, its cheekbone sheared away, embers spewing from the sign in its forehead, then snapped back, grabbing hold of her hair. She threw her arms out. Leo was knocked off-balance, and Malcolm saw the railing giving way under his weight, watched as Leo went over.

  Saul and Malcolm reached the railing just in time to see Leo splash down. He came up immediately, but only half his head and his thrashing hands were visible. "Get out of there! Get to the ledge!" Saul pointed frantically to a slab of concrete jutting from the wall on Leo's left.

  Leo coughed, then screamed---in pain. "I can't!"

  "What do you mean?" Saul cried.

  Malcolm looked to the cadaver and Bonnie. For a second, he had forgotten all about her, the last friend he had left. Both of the cadaver's hands were tangled in her hair, and it beat on her back as it tried to fit its broken jaw upon the crown of her head.

  Malcolm turned back to Saul. He was paying no attention to Bonnie's struggle. "The ledge!" he shouted.

  "I can't!" Leo repeated, shaking his head in the muck. "My leg!" Has to be either broken or caught in something---Malcolm focused---I'll cast myself down to the water---

  There was a sickening snap from the end of the platform. The cadaver had Bonnie's hand folded back against her arm. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. With its other hand, still in her hair, it smashed her head against the railing, its gaze fixed upon Saul before she hit the floor.

  Saul held out the syringe. "Come on, then."

  Blood pulsed from Bonnie's temple and dripped through the grating, down to where Leo struggled and screamed. Very little time left, one way or the other. Once either Saul or the cadaver was dead, there would be no time.

  Malcolm moved in front of him. Leo's stuck. I'll try to get him free. Just wait.

  "He's not yours to save," Saul growled.

  Only I can get down there! Only you can hold off the cadaver! Think!

  Saul shook his head.

  If you love him, Malcolm said, and then cast himself down.

  The falling ectoplasm penetrated the jelly-like scum on the surface of the pool. As Malcolm went under, his vision went from black-and-white to sepia. He found himself fixed just beneath the surface, a few feet from the flailing Leo, whose head was barely above water. As Leo's arms churned the water, light struck through, and Malcolm was able to see the junk lying at the bottom of the vault---warped steel barrels, chunks of concrete, and rebar spears pointed toward the surface. Leo's right ankle had been skewered on one, a black cloud hung around his trembling leg.

  Malcolm cast ectoplasm toward the bottom. It broke up almost immediately, and he barely moved. He cast again, and again. Inch by inch he drew closer to Leo. He didn't know how he was going to be able concentrate his imagined fingers around Leo's ankle, worse yet, he didn't know if he'd even make it down there. His vision was flashing now. Saul might already have planted the second syringe in the cadaver's heart. Maybe he'd rather let Leo drown than allow Malcolm to save him, even if Leo himself wouldn't know it was him.

  That strengthened his resolve, and he struck downward with unbroken concentration until he was right beside Leo's speared leg. He imagined hands around the ankle. He was going to need the leverage of arms to do this, too, and so he willed them to be. He felt resistance as ectoplasm formed around fingers and wrists, bringing them into the corporeal, then the ectoplasm fragmented, and he was limbless once more. Goddammit!

  Can't do it. Can barely see a thing. Slipping...fading...have to stop thinking like a person. Think like a ghost. Ghosts don't have hands, or arms, you're just imagining them where you'd expect them to be.

  That was it. He cast himself upward, passed through the surface into the air. Leo was sputtering, trying to force black slime from his mouth, tiring. On the platform above, Saul danced around the lumbering cadaver. "Malcolm!" he bellowed.

  Fixed just above the surface, Malcolm focused without sight on Leo's foot. He imagined his hands, still beneath the water, still down at the bottom, coalescing around it. Gripping it, if only for a second, before the ectoplasm eroded. And at the same time he cast himself upward as far as he could.

  His perspective shifted violently as ectoplasm went up into the air, then rained down. He was pulled into the slime again. But he'd felt it, on the upstroke---he'd pulled Leo's foot maybe an inch.

  Leo screamed in agony. Malcolm ignored it and imagined his hands. He felt Leo's shoe and cast upward again.

  I don't need to be underwater, sluggish and weak, to pull Leo. I can do it from up here. At least above he had a bit more power, so he cast himself upward again, and again, and when Leo's foot came free he felt it, and Leo immediately kicked toward the ledge. He slung his arms over it and coughed violently. His breathing sounded terrible.

  Malcolm remembered there were fumes there that he couldn't inhale. He focused his hands beneath Leo's arms and hoisted him up in one final cast, onto the ledge, then hovered over the pool. He looked to Saul, who had seen Leo, and was now moving in for the kill. He looked back at Leo one last time.

  Leo's head was lying against the concrete, facing away from him, but Malcolm heard him say, "Thank you, thank you." He had never believed in God...he must have learned to believe in something.

  Malcolm was hit by a wave of disorientation that seemed to spin the world around him. He tried to cast as light bloomed, and he couldn't. There was nowhere to cast. There was nothing to cast.

  There was nothing.

  "I'll get you up," Saul called hoarsely to Leo. "Hold on."

  Bonnie stirred. She gripped her broken wrist and let out a sharp wail. Saul went to her. "I need your help. Do you have a phone?" He reached into her jacket.

  "What..." She lifted her head and saw the cadaver lying on its back, the second syringe in its shoulder.

  "We need to call for help," Saul told her. "I can barely breathe. Leo must be suffocating down there."

  Bonnie was still looking at the cadaver, and the syringe. "What is that?"

  "Poison. It's dead."

  "How did you know to do that?"

  "A magician never reveals his secrets," Saul said, forcing a smile, and offered Bonnie his hand.

  A raw, skeletal claw fell upon his shoulder. It tightened until he shrieked in pain, hauling him to his feet. The cadaver hurled him across the platform. Saul bounced off the far wall and crumpled to the floor. "Help me!" he gasped.

  The cadaver looked down at Bonnie. It plucked the syringe from its shoulder, its shattered jaw moved, and she heard a faint moan, as if it were trying to form words.

  It knelt and touched its fingers to her temple. She sat rigid, looking only into its eyes, until it touched those same fingers to her leg. In her blood, in that same blocky handwriting, it printed: M A L C O L M

  She understood, and accepted it.

  "What happened to you?" she whispered through tears.

  The cadaver turned from her without answering. It went to Saul.

  He wanted so badly to explain. He wanted to explain it all, before he went away, he wanted his proper ending. But, in truth, he still didn't understan
d it all himself. He didn't know how he was back in his body, or how he was able to move through such unimaginable pain. But he was, and he collected Saul and drew him into an embrace. He turned toward the railing. Saul screamed a litany of curses, some profane, others in tongues Malcolm didn't recognize. The old man beat his head against Malcolm's skull, and the last embers of the yellow sign fell away.

  They stood at the edge of the platform, Malcolm gripping Saul in a crushing bear hug, staring into his face until their eyes met.

  This will have to do for an ending.

  He leaned forward, and they tumbled into the pool.

  The rebar pierced them both. Saul's last scream bubbled from his throat, followed by a dark mist. They floated in silence on the skewers. Then, it was just Malcolm.

  Then no one.

  I love you Leo, and Bonnie, and Ray. I love you, Jean. It's all I am now. This beautiful light.

  Forevermore.

  The End

  * * *

  About the Authors

  Orpheus & The Pearl Author

  Kim Paffenroth

  Dr. Kim Paffenroth is a professor of religious studies at Iona College, and the author of several books on the Bible and theology. He grew up in New York, Virginia, and New Mexico. He attended St. John's College, Annapolis, MD (BA, 1988), Harvard Divinity School (MTS, 1990), and the University of Notre Dame (PhD, 1995). He now lives in upstate New York with his wife and two kids.

  His work in the horror genre includes Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006) - Winner, 2006 Bram Stoker Award; Dying to Live: A Novel of Life among the Undead (Permuted Press, 2007); and Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted Press, 2008). His newest is Valley of the Dead (Permuted Press, 2010). He has also edited the anthologies History Is Dead (Permuted Press, 2007), and The World Is Dead (Permuted Press, 2009).