“You’re out, man,” she said. “Out of the band, out of my life.” Keith sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, no surprise, nothing he hadn’t known was coming, but it hurt anyway, hurt too much for him to respond. And then Mort was filling up the doorway, red cheeks, and he didn’t even glance at Keith. “I’m doing what I can, Dar, but this dude’s really steamed,” and she nodded, and he was gone again.
She lit another cigarette.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “I just can’t sleep anymore, not since…” and she nailed him silent with her eyes, stabbed two fingers and her cigarette at his chest, “You’re a fucking junky, Keith. Period. You are a goddamn fucking worthless-ass junky bum, and I’m tired of listening to your bullshit excuses. We can’t count on you, and it is over.”
Outside the doorway, the darkness shifted, but it was only Theo, bristling like a terrier on speed, wanting a piece of him, too, a big, juicy piece, and Daria told her to fuck off and get in line, take a number.
“You’re a real fuckup,” Theo said to him anyway. “You make me sick,” and then she left before Daria told her to.
“This is such a goddamn waste,” Daria said, that sound in her voice that meant she’d cry if she could.
“I can’t sleep anymore,” he said again, because he had to say something, because he could handle the junk, and she knew it. “Just tell me you’re not having nightmares, too,” and the anger getting into his voice past the pain and loss and self-loathing, and she stared at him, a smoky question mark curling above her fingers.
“Yeah, Keith, I have nightmares. Is it any fucking wonder I have nightmares? Everything we’ve worked our asses off for just crashed and burned out there.”
“And it’s my goddamned fault! Yeah. I know, Daria, I know,” and he stood up so fast he almost hit his head on the low ceiling, the Gibson clasped in both hands like his baseball bat before a fight and it smashed against the concrete wall, spinning plexiglass volume and tone control knobs, bent vibrato arm whizzing by an inch from Daria’s face. Busted black pickguard and the neck cracked loud and snapped off the body of the guitar. He held it out to her, the whole thing bound together now by nothing but the strings, steel and nylon ligaments binding broken bone, dropped it at her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said, fury spent so fast and a shudder through him at the sight of the damage, the ruin, part of himself dead and lying in a heap on the floor. She didn’t say anything, just stared at the shattered guitar, and now there were tears, swelling and escaping the corners of her eyes, bleeding down her face, wet streaks over the shock.
He pushed his way around her, out into the hall, the darkness waiting for him, confident, and there was Mort, like a blockade, Theo right behind him.
“Hey, where are you going? Don’t you think we’ve got some talking-”
“You know I owe you everything, man,” Keith said, “I owe you, and I’m never gonna make that up, so you need to just get the hell out of my way now.”
Mort hesitated, long enough to read the rest of it in Keith’s gray eyes, the threat and regret, before he stepped aside, one arm protectively around Theo, and let him go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Loose Threads
1.
W ord of mouth, questions whispered and answers, and so Byron knew that Spyder and her new girlfriend had gone to a show in Atlanta. That the house was empty-no, the house was never empty, but she wasn’t there, and he might not ever get another chance. Knew he only had so much time left, his time slipping away like the crimson sand through the Wicked Witch’s hourglass. And the days and nights had become worse than his fear of the house, of whatever lay coiled underneath, what he and Robin and Walter had awakened like stupid, noisy children. Worse than his fear of whatever guarded Spyder and kept tabs on him, too. The eye-corner lurkers, the dream haunters, and it was better to go and be done with it. One way or another, be done with it.
He’d tried to find Walter for days, but no one had seen him, no one knew anything or at least they weren’t willing to tell him, if they did. He could hardly blame them, the way he looked, like a fucking street person, the way he smelled, because he was afraid to go home long enough to shower and change his clothes. His eyes the worst, because he could never sleep for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time before he snapped wide awake and sweating. Anyway, Walter had probably left the city, run off somewhere safe (if anywhere was safe) and left him alone, the way he’d let them go to the house alone the night of the storm and the beginning of the end of the world.
He’d waited until after dark, drinking cup after bitter cup of coffee at the Steak and Egg because Billy would refill his cup for free, would slip him a Danish or a slice of apple pie. He took pink hearts with his coffee and waited until there was no day left in the sky, no moon up yet, either. Just Venus and a couple of stars, the sky so clear and indigo tonight.
“You should go home,” Billy had said, soft concern, honest pity, filling his coffee cup again, and Byron had nodded his head, as if he was agreeing. And so Billy had said, “Promise me you’ll go home and get some rest tonight, Byron. A bath and a shave would make you feel so much better. Just promise me you’ll at least do that, okay?” And Byron had nodded again, because it was easier and made Billy smile cautiously and go back to work.
But instead he followed the dusk-stained streets up Red Mountain, house by house, toward Cullom Street. Except he’d learned something, and this time he wouldn’t be walking up to the front door, bold and dumb, no way. This time he took Sixteenth Avenue, instead, and finally left the street, blocks from Spyder’s house, traded asphalt for the dry-cereal crunch of fallen leaves beneath his shoes, twig snap, and the naked craggy trees reaching for him all around. Safer this way, because he could hear them better, always just out of sight, but their erector-set legs as loud as his feet in the woods. He could tell the skitterers were trying to keep in step with him, to cover their pursuit in the sound of his own footsteps, but there were too many legs, too many needle hairs to scrape against tree bark, leather bellies dragged, raked along, and Byron kept speeding up and slowing down, walking tightrope on fallen logs when he could.
Slowly making his way up the mountain, rough angle that he guessed would take him close to Spyder’s overgrown backyard. The cold air made his chest ache, aching legs, but he kept moving, stumbling over chert and sandstone boulders like scabs sticking up through the leaf mould, bits of bone showing through the forest’s decay. And the dark as thick as the frigid air, until the moon slipped up over the ridge and bled its satin light through the trees, three-quarters full so he could see, could see that he’d wandered past the house and would have to double back.
He stood still and stared down, between the trees and briars, at the roof of Spyder’s house. Off to his left, something big moved fast, crawling forward three or four quick feet before it stopped and was silent, too.
“I know you’re out there,” he said, loud enough so anyone could hear, and turned around, nothing there, of course, but he spoke into the woods, anyway, because he knew they heard him, spoke slow and certain words and the rust-jagged edge of ephedrine and exhaustion and anger in his voice.
“Why don’t you just come on if you want me? Are you afraid? Are you fuckers afraid of me?” and he laughed at the skitterers, not an act, really laughed at them, skulking back there out of sight like roaches.
“Maybe you can’t stop me. Is that it? Maybe you can’t do anything but creep around and watch.”
And he took a step downhill, toward the house, and heard the nervous whispers and drought rustle of their bodies all around him in the dark.
“Does Spyder keep you guys on that fucking short a leash?” and he laughed louder, laughed like a lunatic, and then he was crying again before he could stop himself, cackling and crying and he took another step; their legs punched through the ground eight times, sixteen times, twenty-four times. Thirty-two, and Byron stooped, found a rock and hurled it into the night. He never heard it hit
the ground.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Urgent words spit at the skitterers, and “You’re all bark and no goddamn bite. You made Robin hurt herself, got us so fucking scared she pulled that shelf over on top of herself, and the goddamn widows and the snow did the rest for you.”
And then he was running, headlong, pell-mell rush, jumping deadfall tumbles and ripping his face and hands in blackberry thicket briars. Feet almost tangling, ankles almost twisting, balance nothing but accident, and the roof of Spyder’s house rising up to meet him. A hundred yards left, now, a hundred yards at most, and he almost whacked his forehead on a low sycamore limb as big around as his leg. Ducked at the last minute, the last minute before he hit something else, something that was and wasn’t there, and it wrapped around him, tripped him but held him up, let him stumble three or four steps more before it began to slice into his flesh, slice through cloth and skin like garroting wire, and slicing, drew him backwards.
He screamed and kicked, thrashing his legs, teasing at nothing he could see, could only feel because it was cutting him apart, sinking into him. Gauzy silver hints like the moonlight, or only the reflection of the moon off something wet and razor sharp that had no color of its own.
“Spyder! Spyder, oh god get it off me, Spyder please,” and the scrunch and scritch of them all coming for him through the trees, through the leaves, slipping between the trees and out of the corners of his eyes so that finally he could see them. Calling his dare, calling his bluff, and drinking him in with eyes like Spyder’s that weren’t Spyder’s eyes. As many eyes as the night, and a second before the silk cut through his throat, sprayed feverwarm blood and left him mute and gasping, Byron felt his feet leave the ground, and he dangled like an angel or a fly without wings.
2.
Putting the old mill behind him and its casual three-tiered judgments, Keith walked west, walked toward downtown Atlanta and away from far-off morning. Away from Daria. Headful of ashes and simmering hate for no one but himself, plenty of room left for regret, and he didn’t know the name of this street, didn’t know where that alley led, and that was good, that was how it felt inside, exactly. Anonymous brick and cinder block like his soul and the expression on Daria’s face when he’d smashed his guitar. Like she hadn’t already done the honor, like he’d hurt her by making her decision final, irrevocable, her one wish on the monkey’s paw and he’d sealed it tight.
Spaces between streetlamp pools and the eyes that watched him suspiciously from black faces, the sound of his boots on concrete cold and hard as the cast of her mouth.
He shivered, zipped his jacket closed and kept moving; turning here, crossing empty chain-linked lots of cracked and potholed asphalt, broken glass, junky little white mousie in the maze-big hollow man striding under the moon and sodium-arc suns. Hey man, give me a buck, man, and he stopped to look at the ragpile that had spoken from a doorway, nailshut doorway and glass painted red. Something human in there, or just something alive, empty Thunderbird bottle in one claw like a lifeline, and he found two dollars in his pocket, held the bills out and the ragpile snatched them away and mumbled bitter and thankless to itself.
You go down, and down, thinking there’s not a bottom, and Keith looked past the ghetto ruin at the shining new towers, clean light up there, windwhistling Heaven up there and ragpile wino Hell down here, down and down, and this time she wasn’t gonna be there to haul him back to himself, back to Purgatory. One more alley, and it was a dead end, Dumpsters and the crap that had tumbled out of them, shitclogged cul-de-sac in the city’s guts. Keith followed the alley all the way back, kicked a stiff, daysdead pigeon out of his way and sat down in the trash.
Absolutely untogether, Mr. Barry, and just an hour before he’d been somewhere else, someone else, a mile away and the burn and eager need of all those bodies stretched out before him like a banquet, and Daria there beside him. Now, just the knowledge that things might have gone differently.
If we hadn’t followed Spyder home, and he knew that was true, that it wasn’t the H this time. Rushing to the door and that damn old lady, whatever he’d touched, whatever had touched him. Something bad left lying around, and his big feet had tangled in it. Too cold to shiver anymore, Keith closed his eyes and tried to think about nothing but the night before, sleeping over at Daria’s place and her in his arms, radiator warmth and their hard bodies straining against the things held between them, sex and the musky safe smell of her. And afterwards, sleepless, he’d read from a book about Vietnam and thought about Niki Ky while Daria slept, had spent more time listening to the smooth chest rise and fall of her breathing than following the pages.
The lines on her face, the wrinkled place between her eyebrows betraying her nightmares, and he’d put an arm around her, as if he could drive them off, or at least keep her company down there.
He had enough junk left for one more fix, and two Dilaudid he’d scored a week ago and been holding back. Without opening his eyes, he fished a prescription bottle from one pocket and dry-swallowed the Dilaudids, tossed the empty plastic bottle away. And smelled something, damp dried stench, jasmine and roadkill, dusty basement air and the cold-rot smell of something left too long in a refrigerator. Wind swept down the alley, wind that went straight through his clothes, and he was shivering again; wind and the puke smell of all that fucking garbage, and he tucked his face down inside his jacket, a little warm air in there and just his own rank, familiar sweatstink.
Something bad that cut if you weren’t careful where you stepped, as mindless, pointless and mean as barbed wire wrapped around his ankles and trailing after him. And what he hadn’t said to Daria, bright dream of the hole torn in a spider’s web, and whatever had escaped dying anyway, writhing in grass, silk-tangled wings and never mind that the fucking spider hadn’t even wanted it in the first place.
“Please,” she said, voice so close, voice that seemed to spring and then roll back on itself, reverb, and he opened his eyes, nothing but the empty alley leading back to the empty street. A prickling rash of chill bumps on the back of his neck, kid fear, and he yelled at the nothing, fuck off, go the fuck away, I don’t have any more goddamn money. But he watched the shadows of the Dumpsters, the space between the high brick walls. And she said, “Please, wake me up…”
“Fuck off, I said,” and a panel truck rumbled noisily past the other end of the alley and was gone.
Keith unzipped his jacket, bleeding all his warmth away into the night, felt for the comforting bulge of his kit, tucked safely into an inside pocket, his rosary, trinity of spoon and powder and syringe.
“It’s a dream,” the girl said, same voice, same papery wasp-nest voice, and there was a knife in that pocket, too, just a little pocketknife, but he took it out and held it clasped in the sweating palm of his hand.
Something scuttled from one shadow to another, too dark for him to see, just the impression of mass and movement, and he tried to open the knife, but his fingers were sweaty, too, and it was hard to get a grip on the blade.
“It’s just a dream,” and the knife popped open, dull and tiny blade he used for cutting his nails, for splicing cable. The scuttling sound again, closer, “…wake me up.”
He wanted to stand, to leave the voice and the rancid smell, what all this meant or didn’t mean, and she said, “Please…” before one leg like a giant’s beetle-shelled finger reached slowly out of the dark, jointed leg and hairs more like quills, and another, then, testing the paler darkness that surrounded him. Keith wanted to close his eyes, but he watched as she came, all that was left of her and what there was now, instead. Enough of her face in there that he knew, the way he knew the pain in that one green eye, swollen and helpless contrast to the others, her new eyes, bulging, all-seeing pools of pitch and the stingy hours before dawn. The eye and the voice and the tufts of green hair.
Her lips there between the furred vise jaws, the needle-hooked fangs, lips cracked, and this was worse than anything from the dreams, worse than the thing hanging, drippi
ng, from the rafters of Heaven.
“I want to go home,” it said, she said, too-pink lips, raw, and clumsy mandibles, and now the air was full of drifting threads, gossamer falling around him, settling everywhere like spun sugar or glass, cotton candy or angel-hair. The world growing too bright and thin around him, before the flash. The strands burned his skin, and the ground sizzled and smoked where they landed.
“It’s worse,” she said, “over here,” perfect, beautiful sadness and inched backwards into the shadows, leaving something glistening wet and sludgy behind. Keith Barry shut his eyes, as the sparkling silk rained down like Christmas, and he tried to find the memory of Daria’s face through the acid filling his veins and hold it as the world dissolved around him.
3.
From Birmingham to Nashville, Nashville to Louisville and on to Indianapolis, buses and interchangeable bus stations, and Walter had no idea where he was going, hardly why. Less money left every day and no direction, no solution but this movement that solved nothing, and nothing inside but dread and terror pushing him farther and farther from that spot on the earth where Spyder’s house sat festering in his head. Sometime Sunday morning, and he waited for the connection to Chicago, only half-awake in the molded blue plastic chair and his ass hurting, watching the faces around him, the eyes with their own simpler worries. Worries in the real world, solid world, not the insane things, what he didn’t believe and could no longer deny.
At the Greyhound counter, a greasy-looking woman in a Pennzoil windbreaker was arguing with the clerk, something he couldn’t hear, but something to watch anyway, her lips moving and the sneer on her face, white-trash contempt, the annoyed disinterest in the clerk’s eyes, and sleep moved silently up behind him…
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