"Hi, big guy," Rand said. "How do you feel?"
"Bad," Tyler answered. "I think my hand's gone." That was so funny, he chuckled. And as he chuckled he wondered why he was chuckling. No matter. No matter. But how am I going to pick my nose? He chuckled again wondering if he wasn't going insane. The thought added fuel to his laughter.
Rand and Kari just stared at him. Frightened. He stopped after awhile, realized that it really wasn't funny. He closed his eyes to slits.
Rand reached out and rested his hand on Tyler's shoulder. "I'm here," he said. "I'm always here." The pressure of his hand felt dull, Tyler was barely aware of it. But he felt connected to Rand. There was someone else in the universe that shared his pain. And the realization of this made him want to cry, to shed tears of joy and pain. He didn't, he couldn't, the codes he had accepted were so tight they bound him even in the hazy awareness. But he wanted to.
He fell asleep that way, feeling warm and sad and happy, and when he woke Rand and Kari were gone. The feeling of being close to someone wasn't though, it lingered on. He slept again.
And this time there was only darkness, if he dreamed or thought it was only a dim light. Then the light became clearer, a dream unfolded about him. He was on the edge of something, a tower, a mountain, a great height. He lost his balance suddenly. He wasn't worried, in fact he was kind of cocky. He had lots of time to save himself, there was a rope right there, tied to a rock. But when he finally reached for it he had no hand. He fell screaming.
And awoke in his bed, disoriented, sweating. Feeling as if he had endured a centuries long fever. The room was dark and he knew it was late in the night. Something had happened to his sight while he slept, everything was blurred. The light that came through the doorway was bright, yellow, hurting.
He blinked, once, twice. And saw a shadow move. In the doorway, someone was standing in the doorway. A man. Staring at him. Tyler blinked again, his eyes were so sore he was sure every vein in them was red. His heart started beating irregularly, his system was askew.
For the person standing in the doorway was his father. He was sure of it. He stood, staring solemnly inwards, backlit, his face only partially visible. But Tyler knew who it was. It was Father. In all his dreams, in all his nightmares, it was Father.
They looked at each other for a few long seconds, both frozen in their own thoughts. Charles took a step ahead. Another. Tyler got scared, he had a sudden vision of his father grabbing the stump of his arm.
"Don't, Dad," he whispered. "Don't. Don't." Charles stopped, looking bewildered. Scared. "Don't, Dad. Don't."
Charles made a muffled sound and turned and walked away.
And for a brief moment Tyler thought he saw tears on his father's cheeks. And then he was gone, into the yellow light of the hallway.
4.
It was harder to be the hunter now. Conn loved the feeling, the edge it added to his movements. Cops, cops, everywhere and all the town did stink. Conn felt a trace amount of fear intermingled with exhilaration as he crept back into town. The helicopters had passed over him twice that night, their heat sensors and night vision video cameras scanning the ground. They can't honestly think they'll catch me like that. He heard them long before they ever got near, the prairie was so still at night.
It was harder to be the hunter now, but not much. All the men in uniforms with flashlights and hands near their guns were actually quite easy to avoid. Even as conspicuous as he was, naked and all, these men saw little of what moved through the night. They saw only what they were trained to see, suspects. But that was to be expected, after all they knew nothing of the lightning.
Conn entered Kinniwaw through the north end of town where a few of the street lights had burnt out. The buildings were older here and more run down, the bad side of the tracks consisted of ten houses. He walked through an old graveyard, a shadow passing by weather-worn headstones. He came up to a small Anglican church, abandoned for over fifty years. The stain glass windows had long since been removed and boarded up. The church creaked slowly as if shifting in the wind. An old telephone line slapped against its side.
Hush child, eat your pain. Angel.
The words pummeled Conn and he leaned up against the church. The wood was coarse and solid against his back. Splinters dug into his skin. Conn started to shudder.
Like him, so much.
The voice slowly dragged away from Conn, pulling like hooks out of flesh. Conn closed his eyes. It was Swallower's voice, of course, he had heard it for so long now. But before when he heard it it had been a voice filled with confidence, persuasion. Now it had degenerated into a formless chaotic power, and he wondered (with a feeling close to blasphemy) if Swallower were perhaps unravelling. You shouldn't think that, Conn. You shouldn't. After all Swallower had made Wayne come here hadn't he? And Swallower had given him the lightning and the floating colors and the power to kill without hesitation. So it really didn't matter if Swallower was going insane, did it?
Hush my child. Hush.
Conn's mind flooded with flotsam and jetsam: images of the place where he had caught the lightning. Except now the shack was together and the tree was tall. He could see a sign swinging above the porch, it said: Haydes. It was raining and someone was swinging an ax at another man, hitting him again and again (and this was all so long ago, Conn knew it, so long). Suddenly Conn became the man with the ax, he could feel its weight in his hands. He stopped swinging. His victim looked up at him, his jaw shattered, his chest bleeding. He raised his hands. I love you, the bleeding man said, but I must go.
No! Conn screamed and swung the ax. He stopped swinging when the muscles in his arms could no longer lift the ax.
Conn didn't know what any of this meant, but on a deeper level of his being he identified with it. The man was creating pain because the world was causing him pain. And hadn't Swallower once loved this man like a son? But that didn't make sense, then Swallower would once have to have been a man himself. Or could monsters love?
Conn shook his head. He didn't like thinking about things like this and in a strange way he no longer could think. His life had become such an electrifying exciting daze that concrete thought escaped him. He couldn't analyze events because they came upon him during his waking hours too rapidly and were at the same time too real and so dreamlike that he couldn't separate them from his own dreams.
But he had the lightning and the thought of that charged him. Again. His nerves regenerated, his spirit filled his sagging body. The lightning, the colors, the ability to kill in the blink of an eye, that was the lightning. To hunt, to stalk, to take. Yes, he had it and it lent to his life the one thing he had never known. Perfection.
Conn leaned away from the church and started to walk silently across the road, his dirty feet barely stirring the gravel. He made his way up an incline into the railroad yard. Two grain elevators towered on either side of him. Little bolts of blue light shot out of his feet when he stepped on the steel of the railroad tracks. He walked down a ditch, into an alleyway. He followed the alley for a few blocks, crossed the street and saw a familiar sight. Rand's house.
Wouldn't it be nice to visit an old friend, he thought. On this the night before everything dies. Wouldn't it be nice?
But did he want to go or did Swallower want him to go? And if Swallower wanted him to go then what did that mean for Rand? Conn shrugged. It would be nice to visit an old friend, either way it would be nice.
5.
The tall man was sitting in front of the shack, his mouth opening and closing with blurring speed. Time was moving inside him now, he could feel its currents surge through his system as if he were an empty barrel in a river. Doorways had opened, dams had been broken, and the moment that had taken over sixty years to arrive would soon be here.
Thursten couldn't stop it. The old Icelandic man who had laid stones on the grave and whispered words in some other tongue, had delayed the moment, but even his careful actions were not stronger than the hate that festered under the ea
rth.
In the rotted casket, six feet below the earth, a body stirred. The tall man's mouth closed to a tight line, then slowly curved into a smile. He rose, walked the few feet to the grave. He sank slowly into the earth as if he were in quicksand. Little red lights enveloped him. Soon he was completely below the earth and one with the flesh there. Flesh that was growing, flesh that was waiting, for the final spark—life—to charge its angry cells.
6.
"He was pretty bad," Rand said, as they passed the outskirts of Prince Albert. He could still see the tube in Tyler's nose, his pale bruised face. The bandages over the stump on his left hand.
Kari nodded. "I wonder what happened?"
"If the stories the police told Helen are right, Tyler cut off his own hand. Why the hell would he do that? And that fight in the bar, that's why he was bruised. They said he started that. It's not like him at all. It's really bizarre."
But it was more than that Rand realized. His thoughts became crazy as if they had received a charge and all they could do was bump into each other. So wild they were, he kept them within his head. Hidden from Kari.
It was all connected. The dreams he had been having of Conn, his anger, it was all connected with Tyler. There was a skein between it all, a web of patterns over patterns. It unfolded over Rand's mind as he drove and he saw clearly for a second, a huge web glowing in his mind, flat except for a mound like shape in the center. And a man was there opening and closing his mouth, his eyes full of hatred.
The pattern faded, his thoughts returned to the normal realm.
He became aware of his hands on the steering wheel, his foot on the gas. Kari beside him.
"Have you talked to Conn lately?" she asked. "I wonder if he knows about Tyler?"
"I don't know where Conn is...Tyler and I looked for him on Saturday but he was gone," Rand paused wanting to say I have dreams about him, strange dreams where he does bad things, goes into houses and comes out smiling. "I've phoned him a couple of times. He's never home."
"Really? That's weird."
"Everything's weird. Everything's falling apart," Rand said. Kari was silent and realizing he sounded depressed he added, "It's just that that Jacobs' kid got killed. Tyler's in the hospital. Conn's disappeared. There's cops everywhere looking for a serial killer and..." We're not getting along. He wanted to add that to the list because strange as it sounded, it belonged. "And these things don't happen here."
Kari was silent for a moment. "I know what you mean," she said, then she paused. "I don't know what you're going to think of this but I think I should tell you anyway. When I came to your place on Thursday and you were gone, I saw a man there. But I don't think it was exactly a man...it was a spirit." And then she explained what she had seen, quickly it seemed to Rand, perhaps afraid that he would say something before she was finished. "...and I felt like he was there for a reason, like he was, I don't know, sucking up all the bad feelings in your house."
Rand nodded. "Bumpa saw a ghost too, he saw my grandmother. And he believes these murders and seeing her are connected. But he had no idea what's at the centre of it all."
"I'm scared, Rand," Kari whispered and she reached over and held his hand.
"Me too," he answered. Scared. Rand realized that's exactly what he was. Someone had pulled the rug out from under him and he wanted it back. Now.
They drove on and talked more, but their topics were general: supper, her father and his new truck, her brothers. To talk about the murders, the bad things was too dangerous. They had mentioned them once. Now they were afraid to go back to them.
Finally, Rand pulled into Kari's yard. She opened her door and a space opened up where he could just say goodbye or say something. Rand felt even more frightened, everything was shifting under his feet and he had to know something, to have something solid underneath him. So he said, "What about us?"
Kari reached over, touched his hand and answered, "There's hope," she said. Then she got out of the car and walked towards the house. Rand watched her until she disappeared into the house, then he backed up and pulled out of the yard.
There's hope, the words echoed in his mind.
When he got home the words were still there and he was happy. He hung his jacket up in the closet, took off his shoes. Stepped forward into something soft and wet.
He looked down and saw mud on the floor. He looked up. One of the drawers in the kitchen was open. A chair was overturned.
Someone's been here!
Even in the dark he could see footprints. The mud still glistened with moisture.
Rand flicked on a light. In the glow of a 100 watt bulb, the chaos lessened. There was only a little bit of mud, a few footprints. But unmistakably someone had been there.
Or is here, he realized. And his heart kicked into overdrive, beating wildly. He walked forward, slowly, breathing quickly, every moment expecting someone to step out of the shadows. He went into the living room, flicking on lights, but found nothing.
He followed the footprints, turning on lights as he went. The trail of mud led through the hall, by the kitchen, and finally turned left and went into the bathroom. The door was closed.
Rand stopped at the kitchen, looked in the open drawer. The large knife that he used for cutting roasts was gone. He stared at the place where it was. Oh, Jesus!
He reached in and took a long thin blade, his fingers trembling. He squeezed the blade tightly and turned and walked over to the bathroom door, each step deliberate.
Fear heightened his senses, twisting them wide open. Input gushed into his brain. The damp smell of the house. The ticking of the big clock in the living room. He was completely aware of everything around him. If anything were to move, if the curtains fluttered, or a board creaked, he would know.
But will I react? he wondered.
He stared at the carpet in front of the bathroom, footprints led in but no footprints led out. Rand looked at the floor. His hands felt cold and he was shaking.
He breathed in. What the hell am I doing? he thought then he kicked the door. It fell in, not because the kick was strong but because the door had been broken.
There was nothing inside but more mud on the floor and splinters of glass. He flicked on the bathroom light.
The big mirror had been smashed. Rand looked at a splintered reflection of himself. Shards from the mirror lay on the counter, the mirror was red with blood. And written in blood above the center of the smash, was the name: Haydes.
Rand stepped back and stared at the mirror for a moment, then he left the bathroom. He didn't know what to do.
He went into the living room, called the police, then sat on the couch, waiting for them to come, the knife still in his hand, the ticking of the clock filling his mind. It seemed like hours, but it only took them ten minutes.
One officer was Rand's age, the other a hawk-eyed old man. They went over the house, asked him a few questions, went over the house some more. All the time they were there, Rand was thinking, I know who it was. I know who it was. But he said nothing.
The officers left a short time later because there was really little they could do, the town was full of imagined noises and figures that the police had to find and dispel. They promised Rand they would make a few patrols around the area.
When they left Rand felt better. He was sure the intruder was gone. And he was tired. Dead tired. So he slept on the couch, the knife gripped in his hands.
7.
Tyler awoke to pain.
His hand, clenched in a fist, was throbbing. It was also gone.
But Tyler still felt it, still felt its pain. The ghost nerves and the ghost flesh sent signals down invisible pathways to the grey matter in his skull. The drugs were wearing off. He felt pain.
And it felt good.
Because, out of any creature in the universe he deserved pain. He had betrayed the dragon, he had broken his code. He had struck out at another human being, not in self defense, but in anger. No punishment, no matter how severe, was u
ndeserved.
Tyler was awake now, he didn't float in and out of consciousness any more. It was Thursday. Two days since he had cut off his hand. He slept for hours and hours, but when he awoke he stayed awake. His mother had come to see him a few times. She had told him about the murder, that Mr. Eslard had been found dead, Wednesday morning, in the playground bathroom. That the police were scouring the town for a murderer they believed came in from the States. He had left a trail of bodies like crumbs on a path that stopped at Kinniwaw.
There was no connection with the murder of Boris Jacobs.
Tyler was unaffected by the news of the murder. Somehow it seemed right. If the whole town had suddenly fallen dead, in the mood he was in, it would have seemed right. It wasn't a sane world anymore.
The nurse came in, bringing a glass of water and a little cup with pills. "Good morning, Tyler," she said. She was in her late thirties, her blonde hair tied in a bun. She came up to the side of the bed. "Ready for your pills?" The lines were well rehearsed, practiced for fifteen years.
Tyler nodded and she handed him the glass. Using two fingers and his thumb he pulled them out of the cup, put them in his mouth, then drank the glass of water.
She smiled at him and left. When she was gone he spat out the pills, crushed them in his hand and dropped them into the wastebasket. He then sat up, his head feeling light and wild. His body strange with the burden of manufacturing lost blood. He charged on against the dizziness, pulled a few tissues from a box on the side table and dropped them on top of the garbage. He couldn't see if the pills were hidden or not, but he hoped that did the job. He settled back in his bed.
That afternoon his Mom and Tanya visited him again. They talked about nothing at all and Tyler felt vaguely annoyed by his mother's presence. He wanted to sleep, but couldn't because she was there, fawning over him. Are you O.K.? Is your pillow in the right place? How do you feel?
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