Captain Quad

by Sean Costello

  But Peter had always stood by him, advised him, protected him. . .

  Sam thought of that demented Nicholson smirk, and that made him think of the big Indian in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Peter's favorite movie. He remembered how the Indian had pressed the pillow over Randall's vapid face after his frontal lobotomy, not to punish him but to release him.

  And as he remembered it, Sam felt his arms stretch out to rigid poles as he mimicked the act involuntarily, felt the pillow molding itself gently to the contours of his brother's face. . .

  Sam dropped the pillow like a hot coal and stumbled into the bathroom, where the contents of his stomach came up in the sink. He turned on the light, wiped his mouth with a paper towel, and threw up again.

  Then he returned to the room.

  He couldn't do it. He just couldn't do it.

  * * *

  Kelly opened her mouth to scream—then that horrid blue light was gone and something touched her on the nape of the neck.

  It was like a kiss.

  She stood, edging away from the ruined window, her sneakered feet crunching broken glass. Her fanny met the back door and she huddled there, closing her eyes.

  Chainsaw whimpered once and was still.

  Kelly.

  (Stay calm don't let him freak you out.)

  Kelly, can you feel me?

  A soothing warmth oozed its way down through her body, like golden butter melting under a hot sun. It felt good, so good. . .

  "Yes."

  Feels good, doesn't it?

  "Yes. . .”

  All set for the trip?

  Yes. Of course. The trip. My, how her girlfriends envied her. Spending the summer motorcycling across the country, seeing all the places they'd only read about. What freedom!

  The whole summer. . .

  Kelly's hand closed around the doorknob and turned it. She saw herself performing this simple act, but her arm seemed ten feet long, her hand distant and remote, not her own.

  Her mind was filling up with smoke. . .

  She was eighteen again. It was the last day of school and they'd just made love—and she had finally felt it, that delicious rushing release. The intervening years had been only a dream, a cruel nightmare suffered in the summer cool of her bedroom, asleep beside the one she loved.

  And I love you, Kelly.

  With these words the warmth inside her intensified, becoming a compelling, euphoric heat—

  But now there was a cold blast of air, nasty shavings of ice in her eyes, and Kelly paused, shaking her head in an effort to clear it. She was on the back steps, oblivious of having come out, the door behind her left open to the elements.

  She could feel him inside her now, in this single lucid moment, not as a lulling warmth anymore but as a sly invading presence, a slow poison, a killing drug.

  The hard fist of dread struck her then. He'd taken her so easily, unmasking that part of her which still cherished him, that part which had been frozen in time and then methodically buried, disinterring it with a single whispered phrase: I love you, Kelly. . . Upon hearing these words, she had felt the fight run out of her like sap from a felled tree, and suddenly she had wanted him inside her. It had felt like. . . like some mystic liquor decanted into the dusty vessel of her soul. It had made her feel whole again. More than whole.

  It had made her feel divine.

  (No! Smarten up! It's a mind game, and he's going to kill you!)

  Heeding that voice, Kelly grasped her burned fingers and squeezed. The pain made her cry out—but it brought with it a savage clarity and she flung herself into the snow, where she kicked and flailed in an effort to dislodge him. For an instant that unpleasant tugging sensation began in her scalp—

  And then she heard a single soft word. . . felt it, in her heart.

  Kaitlin.

  Kelly sat stock-still in the snowbank, eyes wide, heart racing—and felt the sleet turn to cool summer rain against her face. There was a wobbly sense of time falling away, like plates of ice from a towering iceberg. . .

  Then she blinked and saw the land slope away into darkness, the road's muddy shoulder a blur in the jittering coach light. Lightning fractured the sky, and Kelly saw the coach driver crack his whip at the galloping horses. From behind them came an answering pistol crack, then a hot crease of pain as a slug grazed her arm. "Oh, Liam, I'm hit!" she cried, and the man beside her roared, returning fire through a rent in the canvas canopy. "Filthy bastards!" he screamed—and Kelly thought: Peter? "You've hit my wife!" Now the road took a hard right, nothing but a rutted track in the flank of a hill, and lightning flashed again. In its glare Kelly saw her own soaked attire—my wedding dress—and now the man beside her was turning, his brown eyes filled with concern in the wild pyrotechnics of the storm. "Ay, Kaitlin, are ya hurt?" But before she could answer the front wheels plunged into a washout and the coach lurched toward the gully. Now the rear wheels hit—and Kaitlin saw the right one go spinning off over the edge. Liam's side of the coach dropped like a stone, sending a roostertail of muck into the air. Another slug punched through the canopy, and now Liam was clutching his throat, blood gurgling out between his fingers to stain his silk ruff. There was a snap! as the horses broke free—then the coach was going over the edge. In that endless moment Liam regarded her with fondness and a terrible regret. Then he flung her out and was gone, over the brink and down, and Kaitlin was plastered with mud in the roadway, the rain sheeting down, the wind snapping at her robe, the horsemen drawing up around her, high, faceless horsemen. . .

  Ireland, Peter said in that even, soothing tone. Eighteen—

  "Seventy-three," Kelly said without hesitation. She was on her feet again, starting down the slope to the lake.

  You remember.

  "Yes," Kelly said, tears freezing to her cheeks. "I remember."

  They had been lovers then, she and Liam—Liam DeBlacam, merchant seaman, landowner, son of a Newgrange shepherd.

  And now a fresh flood of memory came, vivid and wondrous. Her girlhood on a farm in the Celtic highlands, her love of horses and her talent for weaving, her mother's hale face and her father's fearsome but loving strictness. . .

  (Stop this. It's a mind trick and he's going to kill you.)

  But no. This was no trick. She had been there. She had lived it. The memory came from a secret vault where, even now, other memories stirred from their hibernal slumber. She had loved him before, in another place and another time, but with the same all-consuming passion.

  Yes, Peter said. Many times. So many times. . .

  Sasha. . .

  It was the whispered voice of the ages, secret, serene, compelling. And now a new memory came.

  "Sasha."

  The word was a knowing sigh, and Sam felt his hackles rise at the sound of it. He leaned forward, searching his brother's face in the mellow glow of the night-light. Warm shadows played over Peter's face as his mouth widened in a canny smirk. . .

  Then he said it again. Breathed it.

  "Sasha. . .”

  Stripped naked and cold in the salty sea air, leering men with coarse hands looping crude lengths of hemp around her chest, cinching them cruelly behind her. (Oh, dear Jesus, I'm tied to a stake!) Cold, so cold, and all of them staring, a terrible bloodlust in their eyes. "Burn!" they chanted. "Burn!" And her only sin had been to fall in love with the deacon's son, so young and uncertain of his faith and yet pledged by his father to spread the word of God, not the legs of a peasant's daughter. So they'd come in the night and dragged her away, raped her in that stinking jail, and then brought her to trial on some trumped-up charge of witchcraft. "Oh, David, where are you? Can you not stop them?" But he didn't even know. The ropes were chafing her skin, and now a grinning troll of a man tossed an armload of tinder at her feet, then another. And the deacon glowered, his eyes like bloodless bayonet holes in the dusk. "And the Bible saith, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Behold the mistress of witchcrafts that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families thro
ugh her witchcrafts.' Now a boy waving a lit torch scrambled out of the mist. At a nod from the deacon he lobbed the torch at her feet, a boy of no more than ten, and as the torch struck the tinder and the tinder caught fire, the boy darted forward and pinched her breasts, spat on her legs, then turned and scampered back into the crowd, There were whoops and cheers of approval. And the chant beat on: "Burn, witch! Burn!" Flames licked up in a yellow hoop, crackling tongues that merged with deadly swiftness into solid pillars. The heat was terrible, stealing her air, the smoke making her head spin. The crowd drew back from the pyre, their eager faces thrown into hideous corrugations by the heat. A burning branch tumbled into the narrow circle at her feet, and its tip branded her ankle. Crying out, she kicked it aside, but others fell in to replace it. She screamed—and then a man galloped up on horseback, plowing through the crowd, trampling those in his way. "David!" Sasha cried. "Oh, David, thank God—" But now they were dragging him down from his mount, obeying the deacon's bellowed commands. David battled them fiercely, slaying three with his sword and another with his musket before they pinned him screaming to the ground. And the deacon's black raiment fluttered in the firewind.

  No, Sasha! Nooooooo. . .

  "Oh, God," Kelly sobbed. "Oh, God."

  She was standing on the lakeshore now, that shattered voice from the past echoing through the ravaged galleries of her mind. The moon had found a worn spot in the cloud cover, and as if in a dream Kelly saw the hazy white disc reflected in the patch of open water at her feet. She studied it. It seemed to call her.

  She stepped into the water. It closed over her shoes, cold as liquid ice.

  It was always like this, Kelly. And it always will be, if we let it. Lovers through time. Tragic lovers. . . but we can change that now.

  Change it forever. . .

  That strange hair-pulling tug came again, a sense of something vital being snatched away. . .

  And then she saw him.

  He rafted above her, a shimmering phantasm in the shape of a man, lacking any discernible features and yet unmistakably Peter. Kelly experienced a brief razor stroke of awareness—I'm up to my knees in freezing lake water!—but it passed when the wraith above her extended a shimmering hand.

  Without hesitation Kelly reached out to accept it.

  come

  Before their fingers met, that same discomfiting tug began in her fingertips and rippled back through her body. Simultaneously Peter's shape began to shed its eerie glow and solidify, taking on the hues of life and the features that were distinctly his own. He was naked and perfect, unchanged since Kelly had last seen him whole. Only his smile glowed now.

  Their fingers met, and Kelly felt suddenly light, lighter than air, free as a distant star. She glanced down and saw her body advancing into the lake, approaching the thick lip of ice that tinged the circle of open water. She was already in past her waist. She had one urgent thought—Sam! Please hurry!—but it was torn apart like ground fog in a high wind.

  Am I going to die, Peter?

  He drew her to him, embraced her.

  No. You are going to live forever, as one with me.

  The notion brought with it a flood of tranquillity, reducing the freight of her mortal concerns to ash. Kelly looked down again and saw the water lap over her breasts, cold and black, that livid lip of ice only inches away. . . and she saw something else—a fine, glowing blue thread, stretching back to her body like an enchanted leash.

  Awed, she turned back to Peter, aware only now of her nakedness. Touching him, feeling his touch, was like the most intense physical rush multiplied a thousandfold, and she tumbled helplessly into the depths of her arousal. He'd shown her so much in just a few stunning moments, and she trusted him wholly.

  He would not harm her.

  (That's you down there, and you're going to drown!)

  But there was only Peter.

  When Kelly looked down again, this time from much higher up, she saw the water lap over her chin.

  They rose hand in hand, gathering speed, Peter's smiling eyes holding her in thrall—

  And Kelly stopped. She looked down and saw the crown of her head bob beneath the surface. There was a panicky feeling of suffocation, but it passed. She started off again, then hesitated once more, a cleft forming in her spectral brow.

  Thirty feet below, her untenanted body ceased to move.

  She had heard or perhaps felt something. . . vital, and now she groped for it; it was like trying to hear a whispered voice in a roomful of chattering people, and she clutched at it, the way a drowning man might clutch at a floating reed.

  Then she had it. It was a single syllable, a whisper of breath.

  A name.

  Will.

  Now the thought was joined by an image, Will's loving face, and Kelly thrust it in front of her like a shield. Peter saw it, and his expression of calm reassurance fell away.

  You killed Will.

  Peter looked down and saw Kelly's thick hair floating on the lake like a discarded wig. He tugged at her impatiently.

  That doesn't matter, Kelly. Nothing matters now. Only us. Only our love. Come with me now, before it's too late.

  Understanding dawned like a dead sun in Kelly's eyes. She held on to Will's image. It was burning now. Burning up.

  You killed him. You destroyed the only person I've loved since you. Why?

  Peter glanced down again, the movement furtive. To Kelly he looked like a sneak thief who had just heard distant sirens.

  Why?

  Because. . . because he touched you, Kelly! He put his filthy hands on you! You're mine!

  Kelly felt fury twisting inside her like something runny and half alive.

  No, Peter. I am not yours.

  She released his hand and withdrew. She looked down for her body and saw only a closing black eddy of water. The circle of ice gaped like a fiendish mouth.

  Panic seized her.

  I don't want to die! she cried. Leave me alone!

  Kelly, please. . .

  No! Kelly screamed, watching Will burn on the silver screen of her mind, letting the flames kindle her rage, oh, blessed sweet killing rage—

  She spun away.

  You're coming with me!

  It was a petulant bellow, the final barked threat of a paper tiger, and Kelly glared back at him spitefully. His form buzzed like cheap neon, and now his face was changing in the cold March sky. It was like watching a demon dissolve its false shape, and Kelly felt fear at this awesome display. The warmth in his eyes exploded into cold blue flame and he roared at her, showing her suddenly, finally, what he'd truly become.

  Bitch!

  Then he was rocketing toward her, all human shape gone, transformed in an eyeblink into that malign blue light, yawning open like a vortex into hell. It swirled around her, stalling her, dragging her back—

  And Kelly screamed, NO!

  Kelly, please. . . That petulant whine.

  No.

  Forsaking him, Kelly whirled toward the patch of open water below. She tried to advance toward it, but she felt thick, heavy, drugged. It was like trying to swim through a vat of cold soup. She could feel herself. . . fading, blacking out.

  Dying. . .

  God, please help me. I don't want to die.

  There was a blur of motion—then she was under the lake, deep in its seamless domain, searching for her drowning body. She found it easily, floundering at the end of that strange blue cord—but when she reached it, it repelled her.

  It faced her, opened its eyes, and grinned. Good-bye, whore, it said, precious air bubbling out.

  Get out! Kelly shrieked. Then she struck her body like a hot bolt of lightning. She penetrated her own flesh—oh, it's so cold!—and expelled him like an evil thought.

  She turned and peered into the shifting darkness, the water numbing her to the marrow. The moon was still there, reflected on the surface overhead, and she slogged toward it through the killing depths. Her body had advanced only a few yards past that smooth
lip of ice and now she thrust her face into the air, sucked at it, drank it in. Choking, she staggered toward shore, her soaked woolen sweater drooping from her torso in heavy folds, and collapsed in the frigid shallows. Regaining her feet, she blundered shoreward again, this time falling on dry land. Lying there shivering, gasping, she turned and glared up at him.

  He was flickering, fading.

  "You can't have me," she sputtered, coughing up lake water. "Even if you kill me, I'll never be yours. I hate you. You're not Peter anymore. You're a monster. Peter's dead."

  I am not dead!

  And as it had so often before, Peter's rage sought to work against him. He could feel it trying to drag him back to his body, but he would not go back, he—

  "Fuck off," Kelly said, and laughed. She sat up on shore, struggling to conceal the fact that she was freezing, on the verge of blacking out. She waved a dismissive hand. "Bring on the dogs, you bastard. Bring on anything you like. I'll buy a gun and be ready. But you can't touch me now. Not anymore. You'll never touch me again."

  There followed a moment when she feared she had gone too far, that he would harden into that fearsome warhead Sam had told her about and punch a hole in her chest.

  Then he grunted and reeled away. It was as if unseen cables had been jerked from behind by powerful hands. A look of impotent rage boiled in his face, and Kelly understood that his unending fury had finally defeated him. His body was tugging him back the way an aggravated parent might tug a naughty child.

  It's not finished, Kelly, he cried.

  Then he was gone, a faint streak of light, the tail of a dying comet.

  Kelly sagged backward on the snow-crusted rocks. She could see the house at the top of the hill, visually inverted, uninhabited, nothing there but Chainsaw's body—and the phone.

  The house looked a mile away.

  She flopped onto her belly like a giant tadpole and began to crawl, her limbs feeling numb and vestigial. As she looked at it, the house seemed to withdraw down a long dark tunnel, its well-lit windows fading to yellow smudges. . . and then nothing.

  Kelly fainted dead away on the hill, her heart stumbling off in a precarious rhythm, her core temperature plummeting toward that of a corpse.