Ahead lies the cathedral, a great spired testament to mortal fear. The windows have been shattered, by bombs, vandals, or infidels, it makes no difference. Stained glass glints like a billion angel eyes. My bare feet crush them and move on.
I remember those pews, the soft crushed velvet, the hard oak flooring where the sinners hit their knees. I turn, the wind carrying a trace of smoke across my face. I am called to the door. Memory pulls at me, compelling me onward, but this diversion is momentarily stronger. When God commands, only the dead ignore, and I’m not dead yet.
On the steps lie the bones of a provider, cracked and polished by the moonlight. The alcove is an onyx box, inviting those who worship by night. I was married here. I walked up these steps a free man and down them with a mate for life. Now I am free again but the climb takes longer this time, my feet slippery with the fluids that ooze from my ripped soles.
Ripped souls.
I would never think things like this if not for the change. Now I know why Lucifer rails against the Father—to have all this and then have it taken away. God is merciful, say the robed and celibate men who stand in this altar, but He also tolerates necessary evils. I wish one of those priests were here now, I would break his skull like an egg and suck the sweet marrow of his brain, all those secret thoughts now mine.
As I shove through the door, the smell of wax assails me. The orange bulbs of candlelight flicker and bob from the breeze I have allowed into the sacred space. My senses are heightened, the glorious electricity of my condition tingling through my limbs. Someone is here, someone with warm blood and red meat and misplaced faith. I have known them all, junkies and whores, bartenders and warriors, poets and housekeepers. They each have a flavor, but in the end taste the same, and my love grows larger with their sacrifice.
Christ could take the nails, but anyone can die for somebody else’s sins. The true test of faith is living again, rising up and walking among the people, carrying the message to those who flee your approach.
This one, hiding in the church, does not flee.
My feet are loud and wet in the dimness. I go toward the small curtained chambers lining one wall. Confession may be good for the soul but not for the flesh. Already I feel my thoughts racing, crashing one upon the other like waves in a hurricane, losing their order beneath a larger force. If I don’t feed again soon, I will forget, and then she will be farther away and I won’t be able to love her.
It’s the one curse of this condition, that I know it will pass if it is not fed. I am drawn by a need as old as time, an instinct for survival, a craving to consume. The attraction is like an obscene magnetism, my teeth aching, the rancid juices of my bowels gurgling and leaking down my corrupt legs. The church is a sanctuary, and all is forgiven here. The throbbing heart accelerates, giving away its position. I grip the curtain with ragged fingers. I want to remember this moment and all the moments to come.
To do that, I must eat.
Because already I am forgetting. John, was it? John the Baptist, John the dentist?
If I could talk, I would say a prayer and bless this gift I am about to receive from Thy bounty. I tug the curtain and the candlelight swells, the woman’s eyes are closed and she is saying Hail Mary Full of Grace and I moan the words along with her, lost in the rhythm as I lower my face to her throat and then the words slide into a shriek and then a moist sigh and I remember now.
Thank you, woman. You might have been a nun or a mother or a teacher or a scientist, but now you are free from sin and your bones rest on consecrated ground. And I am condemned to walk on.
Home. I remember now.
She will have left long ago, just as I told her, before the bomb and Subject 37 and the fever and the state of enlightenment. I gave her a ring that had three diamonds, and she gave me a daughter. The girl’s name is Dolores and she is a child of God.
No, that’s not true, she is my child.
Maybe I am God now.
Maybe I know too much.
Eat and remember, starve and forget. It’s a matter of will. And all the world is a mouth.
The street is gray now, the sun making a pink nest in the East. I know the way. I turn, and there are soldiers in the alley. I raise my arm to salute and strings of shredded intestines slide from my fingers. One of the soldiers shouts and I wish I could tell them we are on the same side, but I feel a different truth. A gunshot rings out and the slick bit of metal whistles past my head. I don’t see how he could have missed at such close range. My brain has expanded, fat with the worship of dozens, a soup of souls.
I should hate that which seeks to destroy me, but my quiet heart has no heat for hatred. Acceptance is a flagstone on the road to enlightenment, and all seekers must leave behind the desires of this world. And the last thing to lay aside is my love for her, and I can’t rest in the bosom of my Lord until I know she is saved.
The soldiers run down the street, and no more bullets come. There must be many of us now, more of us than there are bullets, more rotted palms than every nail in the world could pin to wood. The shadows seem shorter, the concrete glistening with the first rays of dawn, a rising hope and promise. I am nearer my God to thee.
And this was our street, is our street, I remember now. Houses arrayed like wooden blocks that Dolores plays with, the ones with letters of the alphabet. Symbols to make larger symbols to explain larger mysteries. Books and scripture and prayers and this deep, hollow hole inside.
Forty days in the desert, I walk with God.
Or maybe it is the third day, a time of rising.
And the sun is high and it might be tomorrow or a week from now and the hunger is growling inside me, fallen angels clawing up from the depths. You are what you eat.
And we are legion and food is scarce.
I was John Sorenson but when God calls, you remember.
Remember what?
Here I am.
Home. I see it now and I remember how I used to pull into the driveway after work, and she would be there, waiting at the door. I can almost see her face, waiting.
Almost.
And I am closer but I am farther away.
Did I tell her to run?
Or is she like the others?
How strong is her faith and love?
Would she be waiting still?
Would who be waiting?
God, why has thou forsaken . . .
A door.
Heart beating.
Love.
Her.
IN THE DARKEST ROOM IN THE DARKEST HOUSE ON THE DARKEST PART OF THE STREET
—GARY MCMAHON—
Kept in the dark.
It’s a common phrase, a saying that’s been worn thin by overuse, but which of us can honestly say that we understand what it means? To be shut away in a lightless place, where you are shunned and hidden from the rest of the world.
Kept.
In the dark.
***
“I have an idea.”
I glance at Brenda, wondering what she’s been up to this time. I like her a lot—maybe even love her, in that clumsy and intense way that teenagers fall in love—but sometimes she makes me nervous.
“Wanna hear it?”
I nod. “Is it safe?”
“What do you mean? Of course it’s safe.”
“You know exactly what I mean. Your ‘ideas’ usually involve some kind of physical risk. Remember that time you convinced me to steal a car”
“That was ages ago. I was young. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.”
“And now?” I smile, just to let her know that I’m at least half joking.
“Now I know more.” She grins. “At least thought I did, until I had this idea . . .” She slides off my bed and walks to the centre of the room, adjusting her skirt. Her long legs are lightly tanned. She always looks so healthy, so vibrant. Sometimes it feels like my entire body aches for her.
I stand and stare at her. “Okay, then. Let’s hear it.”
“That house.
You know the one . . .”
I start to say the old rhyme: “In the darkest room . . .”
“In the darkest house . . .” continues Brenda.
“On the darkest part of the street . . .” I stop there, unable to remember the rest.
Brenda is still grinning. “How the hell does that end, anyway? I always forget.”
I shrug. “Beats me. I haven’t really heard that stupid rhyme since I was a kid.”
She drifts over to the window, pulling apart the curtains and staring out into the street. The streetlight catches in her hair, making it glow. I can see the top of the tattoo on the left side of her neck; a single curling black squiggle. “It’s empty now,” she says, lowering her voice. “They’re tearing it down a week from today. Flattening it. Nobody wants to be reminded of what happened there.”
“Can you blame them?” I’m whispering, too, but I have no idea why. Maybe it’s just the mood.
“I think it’s fascinating.” She turns away from the window, facing me. Her eyes are huge; her lips are full and dark; her skin seems to shine. “I always wanted to get inside, to see what’s in there.”
I shake my head, raise my arms. But even then I know that I’ll do whatever she asks. I always do; she controls me without even trying.
“Come on, Mark. You and me . . . we’ll break in there, have a look around, see what’s what. We might even be able to bring out a souvenir and sell it on eBay.”
“Okay,” I say, shaking my head and wondering why the word didn’t come out as “No,” the way I’d intended.
“Great,” says Brenda. “That’s great. Meet me at the end of the street about ten past midnight.” Then, before I have the chance to change my mind, she skips over to me, kisses me on the mouth, and leaves the room. I stand and listen to her footsteps as they pound down the stairs, still tasting her on my mouth. When the front door slams shut, I wince, as if I’ve been struck.
In the period immediately following her departure, the house seems too quiet. My mother is away for the weekend, visiting a second-cousin who’s dying from some form of cancer. I spoke to her this morning, listened to her cry down the phone. Even though I’m not comfortable showing affection towards my mother, I miss her. I want her back, if only to let her know how much I actually care.
I sit down at my desk under the window. My laptop is switched on. I jiggle the mouse to bring the machine out of sleep mode and log on to Facebook. I scroll down a screen filled with vitriol, and then shut down the browser. Social networking depresses me. Everything depresses me . . . everything except Brenda. But even she makes me sad, because I know I’ll never really have her. All I am to Brenda is a quick fumble and some company on her silly escapades. I’m some kind of emotional crutch; she needs me like a pet owner needs a dog.
I will never be anything more than that.
Outside, the wind stirs the leaves of the trees in the garden opposite. Litter scurries along the gutter at the side of the road, and a solitary man walks past with his head down, shoulders hunched, and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his long black overcoat. Someone coming home from the pub, half pissed and battling the angry wind.
I look to the right, beyond the end of the street, where the post box stands like a dumpy red sentinel. Over the junction, and about half a mile along the next street, is the house.
The skipping rhyme we tried to recite earlier predates the events that happened there, but it will always be associated with the place. In 1996, the bodies of three women were found in a small box room at the top of the house. The house had been empty for over a year at that point, and it took them a while to track down the man who’d lived there.
The killer was called Marty Benson. He was a factory worker. He kidnapped the women, locked them in the room, and then strangled them one by one. He forced two of them to stand facing the wall in opposite corners of the small, dark room while he killed the first. Then he called the next one over and killed her. Finally, he throttled his last victim. Then he carefully undressed them and raped them. Afterwards, he dressed them again. He positioned them in separate corners of the room with their legs open and their hands clasped loosely in their laps, and sewed up their eyes and mouths with fishing line.
By the time they were found—by a local housing officer who realised that nobody had checked the house since the last tenant moved out—they smelled pretty bad, and the rats had been at them. According to the popular account, the one whispered by school kids and chatty old ladies, the room was filled with flies. The sound of their buzzing was deafening. They’d laid their eggs in the stitched up eyes and mouths, and maggots writhed between the thick, clumsy stitches.
I’m not sure how much of the story is true and how much of it is generated by urban myth, but I do know that the house has been empty ever since. Marty Benson hanged himself in prison while he was still awaiting trial. The council boarded up the house and left it empty, allowing it to gain notoriety and take on the swollen aspect of nightmare. And now they are going to demolish it.
Local kids make up stories about the house, chant the old skipping song, and dare each other to approach the front gate, but nobody I know has ever been in there. Now that I’m older, the house seems less scary and much more tragic. The psychic vibrations of what happened linger, breeding a sense of despair. I suppose that it’s all part of growing up: setting aside those silly childhood fears and replacing them with adult ones.
Down below, the street is empty again. The man I saw earlier has vanished. Even the wind is dying down, allowing the litter to settle and the trees to regain their stillness. I put on my headphones and listen to some music. Before I even know I’ve been asleep, I wake up with a pain at the base of my skull where it’s been resting against the back of my chair. I sit up. The headphones have fallen out; I can hear tinny music coming from the approximate area of my crotch.
I check the clock. It’s just after midnight. Brenda is expecting me. I stand and grab my jacket from the hook on the back of the door, and leave the room, shutting the door behind me. I glance along the landing, at the door to my mother’s room, and wish that she was behind it, asleep in her bed. Then I go downstairs and out into the night.
A slight breeze follows me along the street. I can see Brenda waiting for me at the post box, leaning against it and smoking a cigarette.
“Hi,” she says as I get close. “You all set?”
“I suppose.”
“Don’t be such a wuss.” She pushes away from the post box and flicks the stub of her cigarette into the road. The lit end describes a fiery arc. On her back, Brenda is carrying a black rucksack. She is wearing a long black turtle-neck sweater, black leggings, and a pair of grubby army boots. She shouldn’t look sexy, but she does. She always does.
I follow her across the road and along the street, drawing level with her as we walk. Her heavy boots scuff the paving stones.
The streetlights outside and to each side of the house are broken, so this part of the street is in darkness. These lights always seem to be off. No matter how many times the council workmen come along and fix them, within a week they’re broken again. It’s as if the house prefers to sit brooding in the dark.
“Wait here,” says Brenda, grabbing my arm. I stop and look down at her hand. It looks white and bloated in the darkness, the fingers wriggling like fat maggots.
We are standing just beyond the patch of darkness on the pavement outside the house. Brenda slips off her rucksack, unzips it, and takes out a short crowbar. She hands me the tool and puts back on her rucksack.
“What’s this for?”
“Well,” she says, glancing at me. “It isn’t a back-scratcher, is it?”
“Sorry.” I heft the crowbar. “I’m nervous.”
She smiles, winks. For second, I think she is going to reach out and ruffle my hair.
I’m not sure if I want to slap her or kiss her. Instead, I do nothing. I just look down at my shoes and wish that I had the courage to tell her how I reall
y feel.
“Come on, scaredy-cat. Let’s get in there.” She darts away from my side, entering the block of darkness between the broken streetlights. As she passes from light into dark, I experience the sensation that I am losing something for ever. Then, pushing the thought aside, I follow her.
Brenda is already halfway along the garden path to the front door. She ducks down and scurries along the side of the house and waits for me in the shadows. I move quickly, not wanting the distance between us to become too great, and crouch down at her feet.
The houses on either side of this one are both empty. Nobody likes to live next to the house. It has bad juju. Nobody can ever be happy this close to the site of such atrocities.
“This board, here. It’s loose. Do you see?”
I look up. She has pulled the timber panel slightly away from the window. There’s enough of a gap for a small hand to slip behind the board.
“Yeah.” I rise and shove the end of the crowbar between wood and wall, then yank it outwards. The wood makes a loud splitting noise, but it comes away easily, the screws holding it to the wall popping out and scattering on the ground. It takes us seconds to prise the panel fully away from the wall, and before long we are looking at a window.
The dusty glass is still intact. Brenda once again removes her rucksack and opens it. This time she takes out a pair of heavy duty leather gloves, the kind people use for gardening. She slips them on and pushes me out of the way. Glancing around to check that there’s nobody in the vicinity, she then pulls back her right arm and sends her fist through the glass. The sound of cracking glass is quieter than I expect; it’s a clean break. She picks the remaining shards out of the frame and sets them down behind us, and then returns the gloves to her rucksack.
For The Night Is Dark Page 8
