The Dead Man: Ring of Knives

by James Daniels

  Darak stared at him with eyes as dull and hard as ball bearings. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and just for a second, Matt thought there'd be trouble.

  But Darak just slapped the Black Belt magazine against his thigh, gave a tight smile, and said, "Well, ain't that a bitch." And left.

  Matt let out a relieved breath and dumped the file into his rucksack.

  He hadn't read most of the files he found—there would be time for that later. For now, he skimmed them to see if Weston's name was on them, and if it was, it went in his bag. There wasn't time for anything else.

  He made an exception, however, for a partial case file with "Dindren" typed at the top. Instead of being in the Ds, he'd found it in the Xs. Flipping through it, he found multiple references to persecution complex, paranoia, "gender disorder," and pica. He riffled the pages, looking for a definition of pica. Towards the middle he found it described as a pathological desire to put nonfood items in one's mouth. Towards the end he found out which "nonfood items" Dindren had gobbled.

  It turned out that Dindren's pica had changed over time. It had begun, several months ago, with eating erasers, paper clips, and plastic straws. Eventually he had graduated to paint and safety scissors, and soon after that to lightbulb glass and feces. And as recently as last month, his diet had expanded again, this time to include the thumb, index finger, and nose of Jesse Weston.

  Goddamn. Matt's stomach felt queasy. Towards the end of Dindren's file, inexplicably, were several documents that belonged in Jesse Weston's psychopathy profile. The most recent one was from ten days before Matt's arrival. It was a hastily written incident report. Besides the signature (which was illegible), all it said was

  3/22/11 2:20 AM—Herd a yell form forensic 9 & came in. Found residant on floor real bad shape

  No employee-of-the-month award for that report, Matt thought, adding it to his findings. He'd look at the rest of the reports later.

  But then, just as he was about to zip up his file-filled rucksack and head out of this godforsaken place, his eye fell on a cardboard box beneath the control panel.

  It was filled with videotapes.

  Matt looked down at the incident report again, found the date: March 22. Then got up and went over to the box. Pulled it out. Sure enough, all of the tapes had dates on them. He dug through them, and there at the bottom of the box was "Forensic 3/22/11—3rd Shift."

  Matt picked it out and was about to put it in his rucksack, then stopped.

  When was the next time he was going to have access to an actual VCR? At the hotels he was staying at, he was lucky if the toilet flushed.

  Matt walked over to the TV/VCR on the rolling metal rack and pushed the tape in, wondering if the incident had been taped over or if it would be too hard to find.

  He didn't have to wait long.

  As soon as he put the tape in, the crackling snow of the monitor was replaced by a grainy, low-resolution shot of a small room. The camera was obviously set in an upper corner, near the ceiling. Its range was not wide, but it still managed to capture a piece of the ceiling, all of the gray, carpeted floor, and three of the four padded walls. In the middle of the left wall was a closed metal door. At the foot of the center wall was a mattress with a crumpled sheet on it. And in the middle of the right wall was Jesse, acting nuts.

  A thick, dark horizontal band of static rose slowly from the bottom of the screen to the top. When it passed, the monitor showed a bearded Jesse in pajama bottoms and white T-shirt, standing against a wall on his tiptoes, like a ballerina en pointe. He was pressing the tops of his fists against the underside of his jaw. His eyes were clenched shut. He had white bandages plastered over his nose and his right hand, where Dindren had munched him, apparently. It was hard to read his expression from the downward angle, but he didn't look happy. His mouth was moving, but no sounds came out.

  Was he talking or singing to himself? Matt couldn't tell. He adjusted the volume, but all he heard was the soft roar of static.

  On the monitor, Jesse sank to his heels, then stood on his tiptoes again. Then did it again. And again. His eyes never opened. His mouth worked silently.

  What am I seeing? Matt wondered. Is he having some kind of fit—or just goofing around? Maybe having a bad reaction to his meds?

  Matt hit the "rewind" button.

  The fat horizontal line of static appeared again, this time scrolling quickly from the top of the screen to the bottom. When it was gone, Matt watched as Jesse dropped quickly into a sitting position and flung out his arms, flattening them against the wall Jesus-like. Now his mouth was mashed shut, but his eyes were wide open: and not just normal wide open, but crazy wide open, like the eyes of Rasputin or Charles Manson or the bald wack job that shot that senator in Arizona.

  As the rewinding continued, Jesse quickly began scooting on his butt—arms still stretched cruciform—down the right-hand wall to the corner, then halfway across the central wall, until he was sitting on the mattress with the crumpled sheet. There he stopped. Mouth still clenched shut, bug eyes still watching the left wall, where there was nothing to see but a closed door.

  Insane, Matt thought, and the word gave him a chill. If this was what Rotting Jack had done to Jesse Weston, how long would it be before Mr. Dark had the same effect on—

  He saw something.

  "What the hell?"

  On the grainy screen, the door in the left wall had quickly swung open, then shut. Now that it was shut, Jesse slumped suddenly into a sleeping position on the mattress.

  Matt's heart started to pound. What had he just seen?

  He hit "pause," then "fast forward."

  Jesse sleeping on the mattress. The door in the left wall swinging open. The door swinging closed. When it closed, Jesse jerking upright, eyes widening, hands flattening against the wall.

  . . . the fuck?

  Matt's mind raced. Maybe the door was unlocked, had just opened on its own, and then an air current shut it. Or maybe—much more likely—someone in the hall was trying to freak out Jesse.

  He rewound it again, and this time hit "play."

  When the door swung open in real time, he watched carefully to see if he could glimpse someone opening it. But the angle of the camera didn't allow it to see out into the hall.

  Must be someone out there, Matt thought. Unlock the door and kick it open—that'd be easy enough—they'd probably yelled at Jesse, or taunted him, then . . .

  Then how did they close the door, once it was open?

  Rewind. Play.

  This time, Matt watched to see if he could see a string attached to the door. He stepped closer, so that his eyes were just ten inches from the monitor.

  Jesse sleeping.

  Door swings open quickly, forcefully. No accident.

  Matt stared. He couldn't see a string. That didn't mean there wasn't one.

  Then the door, all the way open, swings all the way shut.

  Jesse jerks awake, disoriented, sits up, looks towards the closed door.

  Then—and only then—do Jesse's eyes flip open.

  Then—and only then—does his mouth clamp shut.

  Then—and only then—do his arms flatten against the wall.

  Matt's heart thudded in his chest as he watched Jesse, in real time, press himself against the wall, chin lifted, eyes locked on nothing, and begin backpedaling with his feet, shoving himself into the corner, around it, and halfway down the right-hand wall.

  There he stopped, his big eyes got bigger, and his hands clutched in fists at his throat.

  Then he stood quickly, eyes shut, mouth wide open.

  This was the point in the tape where Matt had started viewing. Only now he could tell that Jesse wasn't talking. He was screaming.

  Tiptoes, heels. Tiptoes, heels. Tiptoes, heels.

  What was Jesse doing?

  Tiptoes . . . Tiptoes . . .

  Suddenly, Jesse's toes left the floor.

  Matt gasped, eyes glued, as Jesse slid up the wall.

  Stayed ther
e . . . three feet above the floor. Still clutching his throat. Still screaming.

  Then he slid—fast—horizontally, into the corner, where he crashed into the center wall.

  Matt backed up, holding his hands out in front of him, as if to ward off the sight of Jesse sliding up, faster now, to crash into the ceiling, then roll onto it, his back and arms and legs spread-eagled against it, and then and only then did the TV's sound kick in, just for a second, blaring way too loud Jesse's scream of terror—

  "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" . . . as he slid across the ceiling on his back, straight into the camera—

  The screen went black.

  "Oh . . . my . . . God."

  Matt's panic increased as he suddenly smelled something overpowering, like a body left out in the heat for a week.

  Sudden knowledge: he wasn't alone in the room. He was sure of it.

  Matt spun around, his heart pounding triple time.

  No one there.

  At least, no one he could see. But where was that awful smell coming from? Mr. Dark? Or just a whiff of his own sweat?

  He turned back to the TV/VCR. He banged the "eject" button, pulled out the video gingerly, like it was radioactive, and dropped it into his rucksack. His knees felt weak. How the hell was he supposed to deal with something that could do that? He didn't have a chance. Had no idea what he was dealing with.

  His heart was lunging in his chest; his hands shook as bad as Dindren's.

  Dindren . . .

  Ten seconds later he had shoved his rucksack in a closet, grabbed a mop, and was out the door making a beeline for Module Two.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dindren looked up as Matt entered his cell, and licked his chapped lips. "In the interest of full disclosure: I can't promise you that I don't have any blood-borne pathogens."

  "Cut it out." Matt shut the door behind him.

  "Also, as a courtesy, if you could use an aloe-based exfoliant on your right hand, it'll go better for both of us in the long run."

  "Listen to me, Doc." Matt knelt in front of Dindren and gripped him by his rickety arm. "I'm not gonna stick my fist in your mouth, so forget that shit. But I will do my best to spring you from this place—if you can help me understand what I'm up against."

  Dindren stared at him, searching Matt's eyes for sincerity. Found it. His queer act fell away, and the bee-stung lips, gray teeth, and bloody eye rearranged themselves in an approximation of cautious attention.

  "Proceed," he said quietly.

  "All right. You've heard my story. And you treated someone like me for years. So give it to me straight: these things I've seen—Mr. Dark and his rotting touch—are they real? Or am I . . ." He took a shaky breath. "Am I nuts?"

  Dindren pursed his chapped lips and closed his eyes. "You might be nuts, Matt." He opened them. "But not for seeing Mr. Dark. He's real—as is Rotting Jack. Whether they are identical—that I don't know. But it's safe to say, if nothing else, that they are different manifestations of the same creature."

  "Yeah. Yeah." Matt's skin crawled at the thought of what he'd just seen. "But . . . what is it?"

  "I'm not sure of that, either. But I have a theory. Both you and Jesse spent a long time underground. And both of you returned with something—a parasite—that you picked up on your journey. Something that feeds on suffering; that hungers for sorrow, loss, despair, and death. And this isn't new: if memory serves, there have been references to such a creature in myth and folklore throughout history. Many cultures told stories of a night hunter that drove its prey mad before devouring it. The Greeks called it Pan. The Irish had the banshee. The Ojibwe, windigo. I suspect that whatever you call it, it is the spirit of hunger you've awakened; the god, if you will, of starvation. And it seems to have a never-ending thirst for chaos, madness, bloodshed, and massacre. A spirit that literally feeds off of carnage."

  It seemed plausible to Matt. But then, this was coming from a guy who had been willing to suck his fist just a minute before. He shook his head. "Look, assuming you're right . . . why me?"

  Dindren shrugged. "Usually, a spirit like this needs an invitation to take up residence."

  Matt let out a cough of disgust. "I can guarantee you that I never invited Mr. Dark to set up shop in my neighborhood."

  "Maybe you did but don't remember."

  Matt shrugged. "Whatever. That's not the real issue anyway. The real issue is"—and here he leaned towards Dindren, palms up—"how do I kill the Spirit of Starvation?"

  "Good question. Jesse certainly never figured that out. But then, he was stuck in here." Dindren clacked his gray teeth together thoughtfully. "But . . . if it truly does feed off bloodshed and carnage, then if you could prevent the destruction of innocent lives—deprive it of its prey, in other words—it might be possible to starve it to death."

  The very idea of shriveling his parasitic ghost into nothingness appealed to Matt. But: consider the source. Dindren was clearly crazy. Still, if there were any way to exorcise Mr. Dark . . . He shook his head at the enormity of the thought. "But how? How do I stop it? How do I find out where it's going to strike next?"

  Dindren blinked. "I thought that would be obvious. Just look around. It has attached itself to you. It will go where you go."

  Matt felt a creeping prickle along the back of his neck.

  "Are you saying that my presence is what unleashes it on people? By me just being around them?" Matt looked away, gritting his jaw. If it were true, where did that leave him? Alone. Forever. With no hope of ever settling down again, or spending time with the people he loved.

  He balled his hands into fists. "I guess that leads us to the million-dollar question."

  Dindren raised an eyebrow. Going to make him say it.

  Matt took a deep breath.

  "If this—spirit, creature, whatever you call it—really has attached itself to me, and is going to follow me wherever I go, wouldn't the problem be solved if I just offed myself?"

  "Well, that depends." Dindren seemed in no hurry to complete the thought.

  "On . . . ?"

  "On whether you are the spirit's host—or its locus."

  Matt stared at him. "Um, in English?"

  "Right: if this spirit is inhabiting you physically—like a parasite in a host—and has no way of inhabiting another, then your suicide would indeed solve the problem."

  "Great."

  "But . . . if it has the ability to move on to another person, and you are simply its preferred locus, or location—like a vulture's favorite tree—then killing yourself will accomplish nothing. Another way to look at it is that the spirit is either serving you—because it's a part of you—or serving itself."

  Matt nodded, relieved. "Makes sense. So: how do I find out which?"

  Dindren gave a little shrug. "You could always ask."

  "Ask?" Matt couldn't believe his ears. "That's your advice? That I fucking ask it who it serves?"

  "In a word, yes."

  "Why the hell would it answer? How would I know if it told the truth?"

  "Because that's the way these things work. The Otherworld, Matt, has rules like ours. Under special circumstances, its citizens are required to answer truthfully."

  Matt gave him a skeptical look. "So there's, like, some user's manual for the supernatural?"

  "In this matter there is, if you know where to look. Are you familiar with the legend of the Holy Grail?"

  "Not really. Should I be?"

  "Of course." Dindren pressed his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. "The story goes like this. There's a king. And the king is dead. Only he isn't. He's been cursed, and he can't fully live, and he can't fully die. All he can do is lead a ghostly half-life. And as long as he's under the curse, his land will remain barren and desolate: full of famine, madness, and death." He paused meaningfully. "Ring a bell?"

  He'd caught Matt's attention. "Go on."

  "So a hero comes to the dead king's castle. Sits down to dinner with the king. Then, in the course of the meal, he se
es a strange procession: a youth walks past him holding a spear that's dripping blood. Another comes with a huge candelabra. And then, the last: a beautiful woman. And in her hand, glowing with power and light . . . a chalice shining with holy, divine, sacred"—he closed his eyes and lifted his shaking hands, as if he himself held such a chalice—"life."

  Matt swallowed hard, weirdly affected by the tale. "The Grail."

  "Right you are. And when he sees this, the young hero is full of wonder and wants to ask its purpose. But he doesn't. When he wakes the next day, the castle and everything in it has vanished. He soon learns that because he didn't ask the right question—didn't ask what the Grail was, and who it served—because he remained silent, the king remains suspended in a living death, and the land cursed. The hero lost his chance to heal the land quickly, and so he must dedicate the rest of his life to doing it the hard way."

  Dindren settled back, and with a meaningful look, crossed his thin, bruised arms.

  Matt's jaw dropped. "That's it? That's the end? That makes no sense! Why didn't he ask the question when he had the chance?"

  A shrug. "It could be he followed bad advice or dozed off. It could be he didn't want to reveal his ignorance. Or it could be . . . that he was afraid of the answer."

  Matt considered this. It could be the key to the entire mystery. It could also be complete and utter bullshit. But what did he have to lose? He shrugged. "Okay, I get it. The next time I meet up with Mr. Dark, I'll ask him who he serves. No big deal."

  "Actually, it is a big deal," Dindren said, searching him with shadowed eyes. "In the Grail legend and others like it, the hero is only given one chance to solve the problem by asking the right question. There's no second shot."

  Matt shrugged. "Well, I can guarantee you I'll ask question if I get the chance. Even though I'm more like the dead guy than the hero."

  Dindren gave a slanty, gray-toothed grin. "Actually, you're both. That happens sometimes. You're the dead man. But you're definitely the hero as well."