Dark Rooms: Three Novels

by Douglas Clegg

  Rachel’s head ached from having lifted it. “Are you going to kill me?”

  Rachel was standing over her father’s hospital bed. Smoke puffed rhythmically from his burst chest, yellow and gray smoke, tickling around Rachel’s face. Her father was smoking a Camel, his eyes milky white with cataracts. “We all die, dear, we all must go, but the thing of it is, sweetheart, what’s it all for? Is it just to go to dust like all the rest, or did we do it for something? Something bigger than us? Something that we can’t even fathom, but we know, dear heart, we know it’s for the best? Now that’s what I call a sacrifice.”

  He reached up to her, through the smoke, touched her breasts, and his fingers were wet.

  Rachel opened her mouth to scream, but when the smoke cleared, she saw a slender plain woman in a floor-length dress at the end of a long hallway brushing the long golden hair of the little girl from the park, and the girl screamed so that Rachel would not have to, screamed because the woman was brushing her hair too hard, screamed because the woman had a small jagged knife in her other hand and brought it beneath the girl’s throat. The boy ran past where Rachel lay, and Rachel tried to call out to him, to tell him it was too late, to not help his sister. “Emmie!” the boy cried, and the woman at the end of the hall turned smiling to him as he ran to her.

  “Rachel? Retch?” It was Sassy, leaning over, her hand coming down softly onto Rachel’s forehead. “Man, you have got a temperature to beat all. Why didn’t you call your old best friend up?”

  Rachel said weakly, “Sassy?”

  “I got something in my purse for that, you know me, Retch, I always have got something in my purse for these things.” And as Sassy turned around to reach into her purse, Rachel began crying because she was so happy that she’d just been sick, that it had all been a dream, and then Sassy turned towards her again and Rachel was more afraid than she’d ever been in her life, because the light was flickering candles, and she held damp earth in her hands, and above her mushrooms grew like stalactites from the cold stone roof of the crib. And when Sassy turned around again, it wasn’t the same face, even though it was still Sassy. But Sassy’s face was streaked with dried blood, her hair matted down with an enormous gash across her scalp, her eye sockets small and empty.

  “This’ll do the trick,” Sassy said. Her teeth cracked as she smiled, and in her hands was something that looked like a small, small baby.

  A small mutilated baby, a baby that was barely more than a sphere.

  And it gripped Sassy’s fingers and ripped into them.

  “Hush, dear.” Mrs. Deerfield wiped her forehead.

  Rachel felt like someone was punching her in her eyes with their fists. “Please, please,” she whimpered.

  “It’s what you want,” Mrs. Deerfield said. “Nanny Deerfield will take care of it, she’ll make it all better.” Mrs. Deerfield helped her sit up. “It’s a simple procedure, dear, and it’s not as unnatural as it may seem, why, doctors do this all the time. We’re just vessels for spirit, dear heart, like clay. You are blessed to be the strong vessel that you are. We are all just jars, all jars waiting to be filled, waiting for inspiration.” She held Rachel’s head up, letting her rest in the crook of her arm. “Just like these little ones, in their jars.”

  And Rachel saw what appeared to be a dozen or more gallon jars in a circle around her, and in each jar some small fish swimming. But not fish, not anything as simple as fish, but what in God’s name?

  “The legion of unborn, our lord Baron Samedi took them from the fruitful womb and saved them from human decay. And of these he chose one, one child yet to be born, a child taken from a ripe womb. A child conceived in such perversion and corruption, conceived upstairs at the altar of the dark gods. Conceived and torn from its mother -”

  Rachel lay in an enormous steel tub, and all around her was screaming, and out the bathroom window was a yellow and red night, burning. Hugh’s father gibbered madly in a corner. “You fucking animals, get this over with now!” His pale blue eyes wild and angry. “Right now, you hear me? I am an important man, I have more important things to worry about than this piece of trash.”

  Mrs. Deerfield held up a small curved blade.

  An apple-coring knife.

  The man with the teeth leaned into the tub towards her, rubbing her stomach. “Flesh always dies, we die so that others will be born. You die for your child.”

  And his teeth came down for her, and Mrs. Deerfield handed him the blade—coring knife

  And when his face came back from her stomach, it dripped with blood and slivers of skin. He handed the coring knife back to Mrs. Deerfield, and then with both hands brought up the small wriggling creature, so much like a rat whose skin had been ripped off, its veins pulsing on the outside of its body, its small catlike claws snapping at the air, its nose and mouth wart-studded indentations, and its eyes.

  Blue eyes.

  Blue human eyes.

  Something in them so sad, so pitiful, and so hungry.

  It opened its eyes and mewled, “Mama.”

  2.

  Hugh put his shoulder against the front door of Draper House. The key turned in the lock, but the door still didn’t budge. It was as if some force were on the other side, and the more he pressed against it, the more it held its ground. Finally it gave, and he pushed it open, crying out, “Rachel!”

  Mattie came in behind him; he rushed up the stairs to their living quarters. Mattie went to the downstairs apartment. The door was ajar. Her trash bags of invisibility rustled as she went quickly over to the crib, but her heart was going choppity-chop, and she had to stop and hold herself just beneath her left breast, the pain was so fierce. The apartment was filled with candles, and she tripped over them as she made her way, but the crib was sealed shut with dry plaster. Mattie nestled Nadine’s skull in the folds of her trash bags. She got down on her hands and knees and scratched at the solid lid. Magic Touch is sure to open this, open all things.

  She was about to call upon her powers to open this place, when she heard the man, Hugh, screaming from upstairs. Help him, and through him, enter the clamoring place. Make the house stop its screamin’. She pushed herself up from the stone floor and headed back in the direction of the scream.

  3.

  Hugh cried out when he saw his brother, and although he never enjoyed seeing Ted, it was the fact that his brother did not seem to have any eyes in his sockets that made Hugh scream.

  “Hughie!” Ted waved. He stood in front of the back stairs at the vanity. “How’s it hanging, baby brother?”

  Ted hefted a sledgehammer from one hand to the other. “You really got into this carpentry kick, Hughie, all these tools and junk—the happy homeowner. I just wish you’d been here this morning. Jesus, the Housekeeper is a stern taskmaster. She made me build a wall down there with your stash of bricks and mortar from out back. And then the bitch killed me when I was done. Ain’t it just like a woman?” Besides the fact that Ted Adair had no eyes, there were other things wrong with the way he looked. His scalp was half torn off so that his hair looked like a toupee hanging down over his right ear, a toupee with a fleshy underside. And all the dried blood running from his chin down across his chest, which had been flayed so that the skin was peeled back above his stomach. As he spoke he bashed the sledgehammer into the remaining drywall of the vanity, on the bathroom side, knocking a hole the size of a man’s fist through it. “Stay away, Hughie, or I’ll come take care of you the way a big brother should. Like father like son, you know, the Old Man went and hammered himself just like he was a fucking nail, a fucking nail, bro.”

  “Oh, God, what have you done with Rachel? Where is she?”

  “I ain’t sayin’ yes and I ain’t sayin’ no, I’m just sayin’ maybe.”

  “What the hell are -”

  “I ain’t sayin’ yes.”

  “She’s down there, let me -”

  “And I ain’t sayin’ no.”

  “What are you?”

  “You know
how blood coagulates? Well, I just sort of coagulated here in this house, baby brother Hughie, it just all came together for me here.” The sledgehammer whistled through the air. “What do you think a skull looks like when you knock it back with one of these babies?” Ted stood above Hugh, bringing the sledgehammer above his head. Both hands gripping the handle.

  Hugh grabbed one of the loose bricks and pitched it up at Ted. He shut his eyes for a second, terrified to look. He rolled over to avoid the hammer coming down. A sound like rotten fruit smushing. He glanced up. The brick caught Ted across the teeth—they were broken, Ted’s mouth now a ripped, open sore. The hammer slammed into the floor, splintering boards. Getting to his feet, Hugh grabbed the crowbar from amongst the rubble. He brandished it like a sword as he retreated into the turret room, drawing Ted with him.

  “I guess you need some taking care of,” Ted said, picking the sledgehammer back up, swinging it back as he stepped forward. “This is a sacred place, Hughie. Can’t have you desecrating it like you want to -”

  “What have you done to Rachel you bastard?” Hugh sliced the crowbar across Ted’s face—scraps of skin and blood sprayed from the wound, spattering Hugh’s face and hands.

  “Nothing you wouldn’t do, although maybe you wouldn’t. We’re just giving her what she wants, we’re giving her a baby, a baby among babies, something you’re maybe just not man enough to give her.”

  The sledgehammer barely missed Hugh’s skull. He was almost to the huge convex window, his knees buckling as the backs of his legs met the window seat. The whole house was vibrating now, shivering as Ted swung the sledgehammer against Hugh’s right elbow.

  “Shit!” Hugh cried out with pain, clutching his arm as he dropped the crowbar. It rolled beyond his reach.

  Ted leered, his face bloody and empty of human life. “I win. Come on, baby brother, let’s see what you’re made of.”

  Ted raised the sledgehammer, swinging it in a clean arc, and Hugh was sure it would come down square on his head.

  4.

  “Can’t breathe,” Rachel whispered, her voice growing weak.

  “It’s the candles,” Mrs. Deerfield said matter-of-factly. “They’ll take the oxygen and then go out one by one. But before that happens, dear, you’ll faint, which is good. It serves no purpose for you to see what we are about to do. That’s when I will perform the insertion. The unborn child needs to crawl back inside its new mother, with a little help from Nanny Deerfield and her tools of the trade.” She held up the coring knife. Its curved blade caught the flickering light. “And then, deprived of air, you will die here in the darkness. But we will keep your flesh and blood alive. We need your womb, for within it the fruit shall ripen. Like my mulch pile, dear, your flesh will be ever so much more useful here in the crib with us than it would be if you just die the way all other flesh does.”

  Rachel heard the low mewling of the thing, the unborn child. She glanced in the direction of the sound. It had furrowed its way into the opening of skin just beneath Annie Ralph’s left breast and was devouring what looked like a heart. Rachel’s own heart was racing within her, and she wondered if the chill that had suddenly descended within her was a sign of shock. It’s all a nightmare, wake up, for God’s sake, somebody wake me up! Please Hugh, wake me up now, let it all never have happened, let it be dreamland tea, let it not be so real! “Please,” she whispered.

  Mrs. Deerfield sat back on her haunches. “And when he is ready to come into the world of death and pain, fully formed, he will devour flesh and avenge the wrongs done to those who clamor here in their cages yearning to be free.” She sighed, rubbing Rachel’s knees. “Yes, well, a place for everything and everything in its place.”

  The fetuses within the mason jars began bobbing frantically to the surface, their formless heads poking upwards as their paws pressed frantically against the curved glass.

  Rachel was not sure if she dreamed or actually heard the voice screaming, but it sounded like Hugh, and it sounded nearby.

  5.

  Hugh thought. This is it, old boy, when he swings that hammer down again there won’t be another chance. The pain in his right arm was enormous, and he knew the sledgehammer had shattered his bones. You just gonna sit here and let him break you bone by bone?

  Ted was grinning his empty-mouthed grin, the skin around his eye sockets crinkling as if he were squinting to see better. “I’m really gonna enjoy this, Hughie, I really am, because I’m gonna go slow, first your right arm, well, next, maybe your left legs, smasherooni, then your left arm, then zigzag back to your right leg. I’d like to start the really delicate operations next, maybe that crowbar you lost, maybe prying your ribs back one at a time.” The sledgehammer went up again; Ted’s fingers cracked as he clutched it tightly. He held it up and to his right like he was about to swing a baseball bat. “Batter-batter-batter—suh-wing!” he shouted, bringing the hammer down. As the mallet hit the window seat, Hugh rolled to the floor, grabbing for Ted’s leg.

  Ted dropped to his knees, off balance. He dropped to the floor, bringing the sledgehammer down in a smooth line into his own left hip. Hugh was up quickly, grabbing the hammer from his brother’s hand.

  Ted stared down at his fragmented and useless hip. “I ain’t sayin’ yes.”

  Hugh closed his eyes, fighting back tears, and smashed the sledgehammer against the side of Ted’s skull.

  Even then the battered corpse tried to move, tried to crawl after Hugh as he ran back towards the vanity and the stairway.

  “Rachel,” Hugh gasped, pain shooting through his right arm; in his left, he swung the sledgehammer.

  Just as he reached the stairs, something grabbed him on the right arm, and he saw white flashes as pain shot through him. He screamed, turning around.

  Hundreds of wasps formed a burning tower, humming and chewing, climbing one over the other, as if forming a long nest, and then the wasps widened and flattened. A streak of flame ran down the center of the wasp column, and they burned away.

  Standing before him, emerging from what had been wasps, was Mattie, holding her daughter’s skull up before her, triumphant. “This is the hounfour, but beneath it, down there, is the cage of the dark spirits. The Housekeeper has sealed herself in with Rachel, and the unborn creature.” Overlaid on Mattie’s face was another, one Hugh didn’t recognize. It was the face of a young girl, gaunt and feverish, with large pale eyes and coffee skin.

  “We will stop my child from being born,” the girl said.

  6.

  RACHEL!

  Was the voice in her mind? It sounded like Hugh. God, where are you, Hugh? Are you there? Hugh?

  But all she could see through her watery eyes was the shining of the curved blade in Mrs. Deerfield’s hand, and she knew what Mrs. Deerfield would do with the knife. Rachel tried to lift herself up farther on her elbows, but her legs were paralyzed from the drug, and her arms ached with the effort. Mrs. Deerfield was speaking in some language she could not understand, going into some kind of trance.

  “Hugh,” Rachel mouthed, but no sound came from her throat.

  Something pounded against one wall of the crib.

  7.

  When Hugh and Mattie had rushed through the vanity, down the steps to the crib, they were met with a brick wall.

  Sealed her in. Buried her alive, Jesus. Hugh swung the sledgehammer back and smashed it against the bricks. The whole house seemed to shake with the impact. “Rachel!” he shouted, the numbing pain shooting up his arms, the pain and something else, something that emanated from Mattie as she touched his shoulder, something like liquid fire flowing through his arms and into the hammer. A strength he had never had before. The sledgehammer glowed with a yellow green light, and when it smashed into the bricks, the wall began to crumble.

  “We will fight spirit with spirit,” Mattie growled.

  As his hammer broke through the bricks, arms began jutting out to fill the gaps in the wall, long pale white arms, their hands grasping at the hammer.

>   Hugh drew back as a hand reached for his shirt, tearing it.

  “They are the caged, they must be destroyed.” Mattie grabbed the sledgehammer from Hugh, and brought it down on one of the outstretched hands. It burst like a blood-engorged mosquito. Then she whacked at another, and the arm went flying. Hugh grabbed one of the arms and twisted it around as if it were in a shoulder socket, and then pulled with all his might; the arm broke off from the brick wall with a sickening crack and fell lifeless to the floor.

  8.

  Mrs. Deerfield turned back to look in the direction of the crumbling wall. “We’ll just have to hurry this along. I guess you won’t have time to die peacefully, my dear, and I do apologize.”

  Rachel used every ounce of strength that was left in her, lifting herself up on her elbows. The jars of fetuses glowed nearby, and she stretched her arm out to grab at one, knocking it over. The alcohol spilled out, and the fetus fell to the ground, flapping its useless arms.

  A dream. A nightmare. Can’t be happening.

  Mrs. Deerfield screeched, “What are you doing? My dear sweet babies!” She leaned forward and slapped Rachel hard on the side of the face, and Rachel felt herself passing out.

  Don’t lose it, not now. Scout, Hugh is almost here, don’t go off to dreamland. Let’s Pretend you’re strong. Let’s Pretend you can beat this thing, that you can do something to keep her and that thing away from you. All right, you can’t move your legs, but your arms still work, maybe if you lean forward, maybe you can at least get the knife. She tried to sit up farther but could not. Mrs. Deerfield turned towards Annie Ralph’s corpse. The creature with the blue eyes was still sucking on the dead woman’s internal organs.