His face grew larger, expanded like a balloon, the eyes wide, lips huge, teeth white slabs in his smile, the mouth, the face, growing, growing . . .
"IS . . . THIS . . . WHAT . . . YOU . . . WANT . . . ME . . . TO . . . BE . . . ???" the monstrous face said, the cavernous mouth opening with a whoosh at each word.
"Billy, stop!"
She felt cold air—then something colder, a rip of fabric and a shattering sound, the rush of icy air at her back.
"BILLY!"
The face began to laugh, and then suddenly it was gone. She was looking up from the floor. She saw nothing, an unfocus of ceiling, and then suddenly he was standing over her. She smelled faint autumn, felt the waft of cool breeze behind her. Her back was sticky. She reached beneath herself, felt the floor rise languorously to meet her hand, felt something sharp. Slowly, she brought her hand from beneath her and felt it close around one of the shards, rising slowly in front of her face. Billy was still standing over her. His face was calm, his hair falling over his brow as it always had, his mouth unsmiling. Her Billy boy. She brought her hand up. It was red as paint. The shard was a piece of smoky glass. A leaf wafted into sight above her, blotting out Billy's face for a moment. She felt the leaf settle across her face before falling away. She could not feel or see her hand anymore.
"Billy?" she called weakly. She could not see him. Then he was there. He was there over her, bending down, but his face was not monstrous. It was merely his own face. His eyes were blank copper. His face was calm as ice, and then he smiled, the smile she had always wanted him to have, only with those vacant eyes. He took the shard of glass from her hand and drew it deliberately across her throat. She barely felt it. She heard him walk away. She heard the crinkle of paper as he bent to pick up the letter she had brought for him. The door to the bathroom opened, then closed.
"Billy boy," she breathed, in a whisper, before she went away.
24
Faith.
That was what it all came down to. But what was faith? Belief in something that wasn't there, could not be tested, tasted, smelled, or touched? Hope in the powers of the invisible? Suspension of disbelief. Something that the senses knew was not measurable but nevertheless chose to allow. Faith was a chimera—an impossibly foolish idea. But one that the mind nevertheless accepted. Why?
Because it wanted to. Needed to.
Was that faith?
Without his being able to control them, tears had pushed themselves out of Jacob Beck's eyes. He clasped his hands in mock prayer, and began to sob. He pressed his head down against his fists.
What in hell is happening to me?
He didn't like the answer.
Around him, in the church, there were no echoes, only the sound of his own rational mind beating against itself inside his skull, and the hard rasp of a middle-aged man's crying.
It had fallen apart like a house of cards. All the new reasonings, the renewed hope, the rejuvenated feeling of purpose—all of it had collapsed and was gone. The place he had been before, the ledge of his crisis in faith, was so far above him he could barely see it from the pit he had dropped into. That had been a temporary loss, a questioning. This was the destruction of the temple.
I believe in nothing.
Man was garbage. He was a creature conceived in filth, destined for the ashcan. There was no reason for his existence. Whatever beauty man seemed to possess or create was all illusion, concealing the sewage underneath. How in God's name could man believe in anything? There was nothing to believe in. It all ended the same way—in a wood-walled room, with the worms and maggots tapping on the door and waiting for the dampness to do its work so they could enter and finish the job. It came down to white bones, and the grin that a skull showed because there was no more appropriate look for it than a fixed, mocking smile.
The sobbing fit passed, and Jacob sat up.
His hands, he saw, were red from clutching each other. The nails needed trimming. For a moment the shimmer of tears blurred his vision.
The night is dark, he thought, recalling his futile Saturday evening fights with himself over his sermons.
The day is dark, too, his mind told him, surveying the brightly lit church with its polished rows of oak pews, the red carpet, the clean, velvet-topped rail, the sturdy pulpit.
A passing cloud broke the sunlight in two, then let it come shining back with full force.
The day is dark.
What had been that sermon he had wrestled with that night Billy had come? Hate the evil, and love the good. And what puerile comments had he made? Something about loving good being the hard part. That hating evil was easy, but loving good was difficult. Pure garbage. Then again, maybe not. Loving good was hard, but that wasn't the hardest part. The hardest part was finding good. Good was impossible to find.
Once more, self-pitying tears forced themselves up into his eyes. He held them back, but then they came in a flood and he was weeping into his clasped hands, remembering again the cold white body on the marble slab, the calm, lifeless mouth that would soon be a grinning skull.
They had called him at seven-thirty that morning. When he got there, they brought him down a long marble hallway, then down a wide stairway that led to another long hallway. All of the doors had windows set in them. There was a medicinal smell. The policeman with him opened one of the doors for him, then followed him in. He was the same young, nervous cop that had brought Christine home. He looked as though he had been through a lot in the last couple of days.
Jacob had a feeling the officer was waiting for him to say something.
"She had a note with my number on it?" The policeman said, "Yes, sir."
The attendant opened one of the doors and pulled out a slab. The woman was lying on it. Her face was relaxed, as if filled with a sorrow long suppressed but finally, at the end, resigned.
"You were expecting her today?" the young policeman asked, looking away as the attendant pushed the slab back into the wall.
Jacob replied distractedly, "She didn't tell me she'd be here this early."
"You say you've been taking care of her son?"
Jacob nodded.
They stood in silence. Jacob tried to keep the disturbing thoughts from forming in his head. He turned to the policeman and asked, "Did anyone see this happen?"
"There weren't any witnesses. The ticket seller heard some noises coming from the bathroom, but didn't investigate. The only other person around was a young boy."
The thoughts in Jacob Beck's head came together. As if a shower of ice had suddenly rained down upon him, he felt his blood turn cold. "A young boy?"
"I'd like to talk to him," the policeman said. "The ticket seller said the boy came up to the window and just stood there, staring at him. He said the kid's eyes were like copper pennies."
For Jacob Beck, the world disintegrated.
In the church, with the bright light of day streaming in through the windows, Jacob Beck wept. He had not hated the evil—he had embraced and loved it. He had embraced it as if it were his own, taken it to his heart and sought to strengthen it. What would Joe Marchini say now? What pious bullshit would his old friend the priest spout at him? Something about this only being a temporary setback? That God moves in mysterious ways? If they drank enough scotch, maybe Marchini would tell him about his own second testing and how the Lord watched over him and brought him through with flying colors.
Beck was convulsed by a sob. He had tried to find Billy when he returned from the morgue. He still hadn't wanted to believe what his mind was screaming at him. He wanted to talk to the boy, see if there could possibly be any mistake, hear what the boy had to say. He wanted to help him, if there was anything that could be done. But Billy was gone, the window in his room opened, his jacket missing, Mary's silent, sure stare telling him that what she had said had been right, that the boy was evil, that Jacob had been fooled.
Billy's face floated up before him, copper eyes darkening. The serious, determined look on his features dissolved into a sudden, vi
cious smile, teeth bared like an animal, willing to kill anyone.
25
On the phone, John Mifflin said, "Are you by yourself?"
Christine Beck said, "Yes." She wanted her voice to sound strong, not girlish, but it wasn't working. She sounded scared. She realized that John sounded scared, too.
"I . . . needed to talk to you," he said.
She drew strength from the fear in his voice. "Tell me what's the matter."
"Where is Billy now?"
She could feel the fear in him, but there was also the sense that he was holding it down, that he had made up his mind about something.
"John," she said, "what are you going to do?"
"Where is Billy?" He sounded almost desperate.
"Let me come over and talk to you."
"No."
"John, please." Her voice was trembling.
He said nothing.
"You saw what he did to Danny!" she begged. "You're the one who told me about what he could do."
There was a pause. "Christine," he said slowly. He sounded like both a little boy and a man. "He killed Danny French. He's killed others, too. You told me your mother said he killed that drunk in the park. I think he can kill anybody he wants to. Nobody would believe me if I tried to tell them. What are we going to do? Wait until he kills everybody? He could do that if he wanted. I think he likes to play with people." A hint of the self-pity that John always seemed to show when talking about Billy crept into his voice. "I watched him a long time, when we were at Melinda's home. He could get anyone he wanted on his side. He's still doing that. If I don't do anything, he'll just keep doing whatever he wants. You said yourself your father was on his side."
He was pleading. Christine's mind was a mass of fears—for John, for herself, for her mother and father.
"Christine, where is he?"
Quietly, she said, "In the park."
There was an intake of relief on the other end. "Are you sure?"
"My mother said he goes there to smoke. She went there after him fifteen minutes ago."
"Thanks."
"John, please," she said, but as the soft click sounded on the other end she was already on her way to find her father.
It took John a while to find the key. His father always kept it under the Bible in the drawer beside his bed, but when John looked there, he found to his dismay that it was gone. He was thinking of other ways to get into the gun case—possibly even breaking open the glass front—when he spotted the key on top of the bedside table, mixed in with some change.
He felt the smooth coldness of the key as he slid it carefully into his jeans. He went cautiously to the den. The door was open, and he thought for a sinking moment that his mother might be in there, or, worse, that his father had returned early from playing golf. But when he said "Hello?" into the room, no one answered. Louder, he said, "Anybody here?" When there was no response, he slipped into the room and closed the door behind him.
The shades were drawn. He turned on the amber-headed light on the desk. The gun case was in the far corner, partially hidden by a square side of the projection television screen. Stepping behind the screen, he slipped the key out of his jeans and deftly fit it into the lock.
There was a solid click and the door swung open smoothly.
There were only two rifles in there now, a .22 and a shotgun. The single time his father had let him try the shotgun it had nearly thrown him to the ground with its kickback. But the .22 he was practiced with. He had advanced to the stage where his father had approved of his shooting at the target range.
He pulled a box of cartridges from the drawer in the bottom of the case. He sat down on the floor to load the rifle. He checked the bore and the sight—everything seemed to be in working order.
He set the rifle against the chair. He was locking the gun case when he froze at a sound behind him.
Someone had entered the room. He waited for the stifled scream of surprise that was his mother's trademark, or his father's stern voice. Neither came.
"What are you doing?"
It was Martha, asking the question in her most annoying voice. She knew full well what he was doing. The tone of her voice told him that, and that she would have to be paid a lot to keep from immediately screaming her discovery throughout the house.
"Dad's taking me to the range," he said mildly.
"He's playing golf and you know it," she said. A smirk spread across her features. "And you know what he'd do to you if he caught you taking one of his guns." Her cloying smile filled her whole face.
"You won't say anything to him about it."
"Why not?" Her face displayed false surprise.
"Because you can't."
John decided that it made no difference—she would do whatever she wanted anyway.
"Now, I don't know . . ." Martha began, but he shrugged her off.
"Do whatever you want," he said, stepping out from behind the television screen with the rifle in his hands.
"Are you going to shoot Billy Potter with that?"
Her voice was saccharine sweet, vilely innocent.
He stopped dead. "What?"
She shrugged. "Everybody knows you think he killed Danny French. Everybody knows you hate him. You told Christine—"
"You little shit," he said, shaking his head. "You were listening in on the extension. Like I said, do what you wa—"
"John," she said.
What he heard made him stop.
It was not her voice. It was like someone had suddenly turned up the volume on a stereo very high, making a rattling, unearthly sound. She had almost spat his name at him.
Her face was the same mock-innocent, sickening sweet . . .
"John," she repeated in the same startling voice. Her mouth split into a smile. There was something strangely familiar about her eyes.
"You really think Billy Potter is a bad boy?" she asked. "Has he ever done anything bad to anyone?"
Her eyes—those copper, burning eyes . "Who . . ." he asked limply.
She laughed. John dropped the gun. The amber lamp on the desk went out.
He stood in the near dark, in the presence of those burning penny eyes.
"Billy," he choked out, suddenly unable to breathe. The darkness had become all-inclusive. "Oh, God, Billy Potter."
"I killed Danny French," Martha's changed voice said. "I killed an old drunk in the park, and a milkman, and a woman in her house. I can kill anyone I want to."
"No . . . no . . ." John trembled, tears running down his reddened cheeks.
"I killed your new parents, too." He could see Martha's wide smile under her eyes in the dim light. "Your new mother is upstairs, one of her silk stockings tightened around her neck. Your father is in the garage. His golf clubs are next to him on the concrete floor, except for the two wooden ones that smashed in his head." Martha's face smiled serenely.
"I was going to kill you," John sputtered in rage. "I was going to kill you before you took it all away."
"Oh? I don't think you'll do that now. I'm going to kill everybody. I'm going to kill Christine, and all your teachers."
"No . . ."
"I can kill anyone I want."
John sensed the naked power behind the words. In an instant, the desk lamp was back on, and the figure of Martha became the science teacher Gleason, Manny Zelcker, his father, then Martha. Then there was another change, and she became a thin, solemn boy with brown hair over one eye and with a black golf jacket on.
"I can be anyone."
John screamed in rage at the figure of Billy Potter standing before him. For the first time, John saw a smile spread over Billy's features. The blank, somber face became animated.
"I'm going to kill you, John," it laughed.
John saw the .22 at his feet and bent to retrieve it. He tried to sight along the barrel at Billy Potter. Miraculously, the gun responded. He aimed and pulled the trigger.
There was a loud report. He felt the recoil against his shoulder. When he lo
oked up, the figure of Billy Potter was sprawled on the carpet by the half-open doorway. There was a neat, round hole in the center of the black jacket next to the zipper. Billy's hands moved feebly. He was gasping, trying to push himself up. There was a look of astonishment on his face. He rose weakly, leaning heavily on his elbows, staring at John. He fell onto his back and, after a few rasping breaths, was still.
A numb excitement overcame John. I can't believe it, he thought. I destroyed him. He thought of his dead father and mother. He thought of Christine, and all the others who would live.
I can't believe he's dead.
"You shouldn't believe I'm dead," said a voice by the doorway.
He looked up. Billy Potter was there. The bullet hole was gone from his jacket. His mouth wore the slight, mean smile he'd shown before.
"You didn't"—Billy laughed, cutting off John's weak protest, firing off his finger like a gun—"get me."
John felt something cold in his hands. He looked down. One hand was clamped on the cold barrel of the .22, the other was gripping the stock awkwardly, the thumb pressed against the trigger. He was looking down into the barrel. He was powerless to move his hands.
"I couldn't let you do it for me," Billy Potter said. But now the voice was Martha's. It was Martha's voice, but the tone was different. The mask had been dropped. The spoiled coquetry had been replaced by a taunting, spiteful hunger.
"After I killed Danny French," Martha's voice said, "you acted just like I knew you would. But I decided that I couldn't let you kill him for me. I want to do that myself."
John moved his head, and stared at the figure in the doorway. It was not Billy Potter. It was his sister, Martha, the little sister he'd lived with for the past two years, the girl with the big mouth and simpering manner who constantly called attention to herself.
"This is really me," she said. "I wanted you to know that. You were going to kill Billy Potter, when it was me, your little sister who lived under the same roof with you, whose breakfast or dessert you sometimes took when you thought I wasn't looking, whose toys you broke, who you pushed in church and who you almost always ignored. I killed everyone, and I intend to do it for a long time." Her smile widened, her teeth were like little ranks of razors set in her wild, ungirlish face. A face with black, depthless eyes.
The Boy With Penny Eyes Page 14
