The Devil's Labyrinth

by John Saul

  Teri stared at him. “Forget it?” she echoed.

  Ryan took as deep a breath as he could, exhaling it in a rattling sigh. “It’ll just make it worse for me,” he said, struggling to pronounce each word clearly.

  “How could anything be worse than this?” Teri asked, but even as she spoke, she knew exactly what worse could look like.

  Ryan could be dead.

  As if he’d read the thought in her expression, Ryan closed his eyes and sank deeper into his pillow.

  Teri sat back in her chair, unconsciously smoothing her skirt. How long had he lain in that bathroom? she wondered. Had he been lying there unconscious in a pool of his own blood all the time she’d been sitting in the restaurant with Tom? How could she have done it? How could she have gone out on a date—a date!—without knowing exactly where her son was? What kind of mother was she? If only she could trade places with him; she should have been beaten up, not him.

  If only Bill were here! He’d know what to do. Why did he have to die? He ought to be here helping her. Helping her, and helping Ryan! Tears welled behind her eyes, but she steeled herself against them; the last thing Ryan needed right now was to have her start crying.

  The hospital room door opened and a young doctor with a stethoscope hanging around his neck strode in and offered her his hand.

  “Mrs. McIntyre? I’m Dr. Barris. Your boy here seems to be a lot stronger than he looks right now. We took CAT scans of his head and torso, and he actually looks a lot worse off than he is. There’s some bruising, but he’ll be just fine.”

  Teri felt a little bit of her burden of guilt lift at the doctor’s words. “When can he come home? Tonight?”

  Barris shook his head. “It’s bad enough to make us want to keep him overnight for observation, but if nothing worrisome develops, I’ll discharge him tomorrow. Sunday at the latest.”

  “Well at least that’s good news,” Teri sighed. She gave Ryan’s hand a quick squeeze. “Did you hear that?”

  Ryan nodded, but didn’t open his eyes.

  “We’ve given him something for the pain,” Barris went on. He should be down for the night within about ten more minutes.”

  “Can I stay with him?” Teri asked. “Just sit here?”

  The doctor shrugged noncommittally, but Tom Kelly shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Just let him sleep.”

  “But what if he needs something?” Teri pleaded and suddenly Tom understood exactly what was really in her mind.

  “He’s not going to need anything, and if he does, he’s got a whole nursing staff to take care of it for him. But I’ll bet he’d like you to be awake tomorrow, instead of passing out whenever he tries to talk to you.”

  Teri looked helplessly at Ryan. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be breathing regularly and easily. Tom was right—there was nothing she could do for him tonight. “Okay,” she said, rising shakily to her feet.

  “I’ll see you all in the morning, then,” Dr. Barris said. His pager beeped, he glanced at it, then said a quick good-bye and left the room.

  Teri leaned over the edge of the bed and kissed Ryan on the cheek, then smoothed his hair, which was still damp from the nurse washing the blood out of it. She looked down at her son, her chest tight. “Good night, honey,” she said, brushing his cheek with her lips. “Sweet dreams.”

  Ryan neither opened his eyes, nor gave any acknowledgment that he’d heard her words.

  In the car, Teri finally let her tears flow. Tom drove slowly and said nothing, letting her deal with her roiling emotions. But when he got to her house, he pulled into the driveway, killed the engine and turned off the lights. “I think maybe I’d better come in, at least for a while,” he said softly.

  Teri blew her nose, took a couple of deep breaths, and nodded.

  “I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said a few minutes later as she started making a pot of coffee. “We should be able to press charges against whoever did this to Ryan. But I know what he means—it could just make things worse for him!”

  “I have a suggestion,” Tom said, taking the milk out of the refrigerator, setting it on the kitchen table, then sitting down.

  “I know,” Teri sighed. “St. Isaac’s. But even if he agreed to go and we could get him in, I can’t see how I could possibly manage the money. Bill’s death benefits just weren’t that much.”

  “St. Isaac’s has to have some kind of financial aid program.” He hesitated, then: “And I’m not totally broke.”

  Teri’s eyes glistened with tears even as she shook her head. “That’s incredibly sweet of you, but you know I can’t take your money,” she said, then held up a protesting hand as Tom opened his mouth to argue with her. “And even if I could, I don’t think I want Ryan living somewhere else.”

  “And those kids who beat him up will be back at Dickinson High on Monday morning,” Tom reminded her.

  Exhaustion flowed through Teri like liquid lead. “Oh, God,” she sighed as she looked around for clean coffee cups, then just pulled two from this morning out of the dishwasher.

  “Listen,” Tom pressed. “I know someone who works at St. Isaac’s. Let me at least give him a call and see what the possibilities are. At this point we don’t even know if we can get Ryan in. But let’s at least find out what the options are, okay?”

  “Okay,” Teri agreed, too numb to argue. “And who knows? Maybe that’s where he should be.” She poured each of them a cup of coffee, set the pot down on the table, and sank into the chair opposite Tom, who reached across and took her hand, squeezing it as gently as she’d squeezed Ryan’s a little while ago.

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re not completely by yourself, you know. And things will get better.”

  She nodded her head. That was good to hear, even though she didn’t believe it.

  CHAPTER 8

  KIP ADAMSON WAS leaning against a brick wall. The thing was, he had no idea why he was there, or how long he’d been there, or even where the wall itself was. He felt oddly paralyzed, afraid to move, afraid even to look around, as if any movement at all might cause whatever reality he was in to vanish as abruptly as it had come.

  But was it real? Maybe he was dreaming—in fact, he had to be dreaming, since nothing about either his surroundings or his body felt real at all.

  Then his fingers brushed against the coarse bricks behind him.

  They felt real.

  He looked at his hands.

  They looked real.

  He curled his fingers into fists, and then relaxed them.

  It was all real.

  He sank to the sidewalk, trying to figure out what had happened to him. Where was he? How had he gotten here? And why was he here, wherever “here” was?

  He looked down the dark, deserted street. A neon bar sign was glowing halfway down the block, but other than that all he saw were the stoops in front of a series of old brownstone houses. But not nice ones like the ones on Beacon Hill or in the Back Bay.

  These looked more like slums.

  And it felt late. After midnight? He couldn’t tell.

  He rose back to his feet and moved slowly along the narrow city sidewalk, looking for landmarks—anything recognizable. But nothing looked familiar.

  How could he have gotten here? He searched his memory, but the last thing he could really remember was eating pancakes for breakfast in the dining room at St. Isaac’s.

  And he’d felt a little dizzy. He’d headed back to his room, but…

  The memories tumbled through his head now. Hot! He’d felt so hot he thought his flesh was being seared right off his bones.

  And all around him, vivid colors had pulsated, colors so vivid he could not only see them, but feel them, every nerve in his body tingling and vibrating.

  And voices! Guttural, garbled sounds in a language he didn’t understand, but the meaning of which he’d understood.

  Then the things—horrible, impossibly hideous creatures—had come. Even now, in the darkness of
the empty street, they rose out of his subconscious to taunt him, their lips twisted, their burning eyes leered.

  In the darkness of the night, he felt the same urge to flee he’d felt this morning.

  Was that what had happened? Had it been some kind of nightmare that he’d tried to flee from? But if he’d been asleep, and dreaming, how had he gotten to these empty streets he’d never seen before?

  Unless this was the dream, and in a minute he’d wake up, and be back in his room at school and Clay Matthews would be asleep in the other bed.

  The things were back now, all around him, and he ran his hands over his face, sweating even in the cool of the night.

  A drunk stumbled out of the bar and Kip shrank into a shadowed doorway, his vision suddenly blurring as if he were looking through a greasy window. He rubbed his eyes, but the blurriness remained.

  Then the strange dizziness he’d felt this morning struck him again, and he clung to the brick wall, fighting the vertigo.

  The man wandered toward him, singing softly to himself, and Kip watched from the shadows, a strange hunger growing inside him.

  He wanted something—craved it.

  But what?

  The guttural voices were jabbering again, and, in the blurred periphery of his vision, Kip glimpsed the demons reaching toward him, wanting to touch him, to tear at him.

  To devour him.

  No!

  His right hand slid into the deep front pocket of his cargo pants, his fingers closing on a hard object. A second later he was staring at a knife.

  A large knife with a bone handle, into which was folded a thick blade.

  He’d never seen the knife before—he was sure of it—but he knew what to do.

  He pressed a small button on the knife’s haft, and the blade flicked out, locking instantly into place.

  He tested it with the thumb of his left hand, and watched as blood began to ooze from a deep cut.

  A searing pain shot through his hand and up his arm.

  The voices of the demons gurgled with pleasure.

  He stepped out of the shadows and into the path of the drunk. The man slowed and looked puzzled for a moment. His bleary eyes focused on the knife, then shifted to Kip’s face.

  Even in the dim glow of light from the streetlamp at the corner, Kip could see the blood drain from the man’s face. Seeming to sober in an instant, the man wheeled around, shambled down the sidewalk, and disappeared back into the bar.

  Kip peered down at the knife, still glistening with his own blood. Clutching it tighter, he turned and started the other way. Toward the end of the block, light flooded the sidewalk as someone emerged from one of the brownstones. Then the light was gone, and a figure came down the steps from the house’s stoop.

  Kip slipped into the shadows, sweat flowing from his face.

  The figure turned and began to walk away from him. A woman with a small dog on a leash.

  Kip stepped out of the shadows and started after her, his footfalls silent in the night.

  Somewhere on the edges of his consciousness he heard a sound, a soft wailing.

  Like the sound the woman might make when he plunged the knife deep into her belly.

  His step quickened, and, as the wailing grew louder and he closed in on the lone figure ahead of him, his fingers tightened around the handle of the knife.

  The woman paused as the dog stopped to lift his leg on a fire hydrant, and suddenly sensed that she wasn’t alone on the street. She turned, looking full into his face. Kip saw her eyes widen, and the blood drain from her face as it had from the drunk only a few minutes ago. Then, as the wailing grew into the screams of sirens, the woman backed away, then turned to flee.

  Too late.

  Kip caught up with her, his left arm snaking out, his fingers closing in on her hair. He yanked her backward and she fell against his body.

  Now there was a strange red and blue glow pulsing in the darkness, and the sirens continued screaming.

  A moment later, voices were howling at him, and Kip froze.

  The dog’s barking rose out of the melee around him, and the woman, too, began to scream.

  Pulling her head back even farther, Kip’s right hand rose as if from its own volition and then the blade was ripping across the woman’s throat. In an instant her screams died away to nothing more than a wheezing gurgle and blood spewed from the gaping wound the blade had opened. Her knees buckled and as she sank to the sidewalk, Kip sank with her. He was on his knees now, crouching above the woman. She lay on her back, her glazing eyes staring up at him.

  The sirens fell silent.

  He heard the sound of car doors slamming.

  Voices—real voices—shouted into the night.

  Kip heard nothing as the demons in his head urged him on. He raised the knife and plunged it deep into the woman’s chest.

  Her body shuddered reflexively.

  Kip raised the knife again.

  He felt something slam into his back, and heard a loud popping sound.

  The knife arced down again, sinking into the woman’s belly. As the blade sliced through her stomach and intestines, another bullet slammed into Kip.

  This time, though, it wasn’t his back the bullet hit.

  This time it was his head, and in the instant it shattered his skull and entered his brain, blackness descended over him.

  He pitched forward, surrendering his soul to the demons inside him, and his body dropped on top of the woman he’d just killed.

  The street—and the demons inside Kip—fell silent.

  CHAPTER 9

  HE WAS BACK on the floor of the boys’ restroom at Dickinson, curled up in a fetal position, bracing himself for the next kick. Only it wasn’t just Stan Wojniak and Bennie Locke this time. Frankie Alito was there, too, along with three other guys, and all of them were kicking him, their shoes thudding into his sides and smashing his face. Even the walls seemed to be closing in on him, and there was no place to hide, and more guys were around him, and then he saw the knives.

  First in Alito’s hand, and then in Locke’s, and then they all had knives, and they were closing in on him, and his heart was pounding so hard he could hear it, and he opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out and—

  —and Ryan jerked awake in the darkened hospital room. Its silence broken only by the pounding of his own heart, and the groan that escaped his lips as the pain of his convulsive awakening broke through the narcotics and threatened to tear his chest apart.

  He lay perfectly still, willing the spasm of pain to break. The beating was over—he was safe. Safe in the hospital, and tomorrow he would go home.

  Tomorrow or Sunday.

  The wave of pain finally began to recede, and he turned over onto his good side, wincing at the new pang of protest from his cracked ribs. He held still again and closed his eyes, but after the nightmare he didn’t really want to go back to sleep again, at least not until the last remnants of the dream were completely gone.

  Besides, he wasn’t sleepy, and what he really wanted was someone to talk to. But not his mother, who would only start crying, and certainly not Tom Kelly. And he didn’t want to call any of the nurses, either. They’d just give him some more pills.

  The person he really wanted to talk to was his father.

  His father would know what to do, would tell him how to handle Frankie Alito and all his friends when he went back to school on Monday. But his father couldn’t help him, because his father was dead, and wasn’t coming back, and Ryan was just going to have to figure out what to do by himself.

  A single tear rolled out the corner of his eye and he quickly wiped it away. Then there was a soft knock on the door. As Ryan fumbled with the controller and found the light switch, the door opened and a dark-haired man stepped inside.

  A dark-haired man who was neither a nurse nor an orderly.

  Ryan gazed at him uncertainly.

  “Ryan?” the man asked. “Ryan McIntyre?”

  Ryan nodded.

/>   The man stepped fully into the room and let the door close quietly behind him, and without the brighter lights of the hallway behind him, Ryan could finally see the clerical collar the man wore.

  A priest.

  “I’m Father Sebastian Sloane,” the priest said, lowering himself onto the chair closest to the bed.

  Ryan frowned. What was a priest doing here? Had his mother sent him? But maybe he was just the chaplain at the hospital or something. Before he could ask, though, the priest spoke again. “I think you know a friend of mine. Tom Kelly?”

  Ryan’s expression darkened. “Why’d he send you here?” he asked, making no attempt to keep the hostility out of his voice. “Is he hoping I’m going to die and wanted you to give me last rites?”

  The priest didn’t even flinch at the harsh words; instead he chuckled. “Not too fond of him, hunh?”

  Ryan shook his head. “Why should I be?”

  Father Sebastian spread his hands dismissively. “No reason that I can think of. Knowing Tom, he’s probably trying to act like your father. Anyway, he sure sounded like it when he called me an hour ago.” He leaned forward slightly and dropped his voice. “So how bad is he?”

  Ryan shrugged. “He just keeps acting like he knows what’s best for my mother and me. Like we can’t take care of ourselves.”

  “Sounds like Tom, all right,” Father Sebastian sighed. “He tries to run everyone’s life. In fact, that’s why I came over here tonight—it was easier to just do what he wanted me to do than try to argue with him. Although I’ve got to say, sometimes I’d rather just—” He cut off his words and jabbed the middle finger of his right hand high in the air. “You know what I mean?”

  “Jesus,” Ryan blurted out without thinking. “What kind of priest are you?”

  “Actually, I’m a counselor at St. Isaac’s,” Father Sebastian said. He grinned, and when he spoke again his voice was tinged with sarcasm. “Is it all getting clearer now?”