The air grows thicker and thicker. She is breathing soup. Her daughter asks if she smelled that, her tiny voice oddly and suddenly deep and run down. She does smell it, God yes, but her Yes sounds entirely absurd, as if she has no idea how to speak in the least.
The air—it reeks of spent matches. Her son smells it, too, he tells her, sounding like one of her father’s ancient 78’s played at 45. His voice is sluggish and slurred, slurred as if he’s been drinking, and the thought of that, much more than that overpowering phosphorous, dismays her.
She turns. At the very limit of her reach, she hears a kind of chatter, odd clicking sounds that remind her of those hilarious joke teeth she used to bring to school as a foolish girl. A foolish girl who married a monster.
Monsters—
Her mind starts; surely none of this is happening. None of this is real. Her children—monstrous now—look like melting wax figures.
Her little girl falters, and she holds her close; she’s as fragile as a wilting rose. Tears are streaming slowly, so slowly, down her sagging skin. She turns to her son, that thick river of goo, and wonders what on Earth she can do.
Her eyes roll; she very nearly doubles from the wave of heat that strikes them. She could swear she hears a voice crying out, but she can’t be sure, for like the hideous droop of her daughter’s face, everything is turning and churning, growing liquid and thick … even sound. Her very thoughts seem to be coming like so much blur.
She hears crickets—not the six-legged crooners that would finally soothe her to sleep in tears when she waited up, rather the backup voices of Buddy Holly’s band—but they sound like scary things, things that lurk in the dark. The music itself has become a throttled throat of drum and guitar, and Buddy, well, Buddy sounds like the groans of the dying after a plane crash.
Her son—she can scarcely discern those roiling eyes behind that molten mask—reaches out to the air, as if he can touch it; as if he can feel it. His hand seems to linger there, sensing something but nothing, and then it snaps back, snaps back as if something has bitten it. Still, the boy moves so laboriously, so stiffly, like a man submerged in a tank of water.
The current rages, striking like the claws of a beast. It is all around her, having its way; it seems to slither through her like a snake. It is taking them, taking them all, and as she clings to her daughter for dear life, her heart bleeds. They are melting. Melting into each other. But incredibly, it is not that, not the electricity, not the searing heat—not even the knowing that death is at hand—that makes her scream and scream inside her head.
It is the mist.
Her son points—cheesy skin drips from his finger—and so she whirls, slow as a sloth, to the drifter, to the man behind the curtain. The heat is hungry, and her skin, once soft and supple, is the perfect meal. It boils and bubbles. Her eyes burn, seemingly searing from the inside, and when she finally sees it, that impossibly fragile fog, her slack jaw sinks and sags in her disbelief. She is a circus freak.
She cannot trust what she sees. She cannot. It looks like an egg, a floating egg of thick purple fog, hovering like a ghost about those weathered boots, boots riding those odd footprints she cannot get rid of. It is too much, far too much, to fathom, and as she clutches ever tighter round that thickening paste that is her child, she trembles at that silent scream lodged so deep in her brain.
The heat soars, so high she can barely breathe. Her daughter gasps for air and she helps her, but they are two who are one and it does no good. The air is crushing, crushing, crushing, and her ears pop; her son brings his hands to his to stem the pain, and nearly tumbles down the steps in his stupor. Her knees are buckling, her body growing thick and thin at the same time. She can feel her child swimming inside of her, and can only watch in horror as this beautiful flower wilts before her time.
It is all wilting … it is all melting.
She looks to her son and again her mind reels. Fine flecks of dust, perhaps the whitest talcum she has ever seen, coat his head and his shoulders like freshly fallen snow. It clings to him, clings to her, clings to everything in its path. It keeps coming and coming—from somewhere—but nowhere.
She chokes; they all choke. She tries to clear her throat, but the stuff has its way; like the charging current, it holds a will all its own. It comes and it comes and it comes, an unstoppable storm, and doesn’t it sting when it gets in her eyes. It is all she can do just to breathe, and she knows that the end is near.
The music dies. The music dies, as if Holly had been killed in that crash a few years back; it’s as if the song had never existed. Ben Caldwell’s truck, as much of a truck it still is, for it looks more like a giant blob with blobs for wheels, has stopped idling, sputtering to a quick death. The powder—so brilliant, so choking—is so thick on the windshield she can hardly see the little shit. And that angers her, it really does, for boy oh boy she has a lot to say to him, and she fears she will never get the chance.
She catches the faintest of breaths. Pep is here, creeping ever so slowly, and she wonders what the hell has happened to him. His coat is matted and slick, his body starved, and like everything else, is more goop than tabby. He can barely stand, the poor thing, trembling the way he does on those sticks for legs, and for some reason she thinks of Henry Roberts, that skinny runt of an asshole out at the Wild, how she’d like to say a thing or two to him before she dies. Abbott comes, she too nothing more than bone and slime, and Costello follows—not that thing that scurried off into that odd stand of woods, thank God—and she wonders where that thing is now. They are frightened little critters, these precious little pets, staring into space like they’re utterly stupid, and when she looks across the yard to her beloved Beaks, she knows that he’s not frightened, not of cats or of crows or of anything else, because Beaks, that loyal companion who would never beat on her or cheat on her or bring harm to her children, he’s nothing more than a jelly mold of dead dog in winter … only it’s not winter, it’s summer, and that snow isn’t snow in this topsy-turvy world, it’s that powder, that white, white powder.
Something stirs her. Compels her to look up. The sky is deeper now, like black blood, and the sun, that bobbling eye of evil, looms high. The temperature soars. It is as if they are all stuck in some bubble of magic, a world unto themselves, and outside of it, outside of where they exist, this strangest of storms rages. And yet, inside, within this invisible sphere of madness, the wind still comes, whirling about them like a preying phantom. It is alive, as alive as that vile electricity crushing down on them. She can hear it, that invisible energy, clicking and clicking and clicking, chattering teeth chomping on and on and on. It frightens her, deathly so, for she knows that those teeth are coming, coming to clamp down on them once and for all. And when that happens, when the wind takes them and that insatiable force finally feasts, their precious little bubble will burst.
But there’s more. There is more, and what there is, is impossible. Closing her eyes and keeping them shut, she tells herself this cannot be. Yet when she dares to open them, knowing full well that she’s snapped—the impossible is still there. Still there.
Pep is floating; he really is. The poor thing is clawing for the grass, clawing, clawing, clawing, but it does no good. Time moves so slowly now, achingly so, she can follow those tiny razors as they stab and retract. Stab and retract. Costello rises next—of course she does—and Abbott follows. They are helpless, so helpless and afraid. And, like her, so insane.
It is all so insane.
With a sagging hand that takes an age to move, she points. But her wreck of a son has already seen. There are no shadows beneath the cats. None beneath the shortstop’s pickup; none beneath hers. She places a hand above her daughter’s hair to block the sun … nothing. It is as if some dark magic were at work in this place, stealing the shadows for its own sinister purpose. She wonders how long it will be before they too are sucked into some eternal black abyss, how long before all they are is but a memory. And when she turns one last time,
to the man behind the curtain, she is certain their time has run out.
The mist, that strangely glorious fog, has lifted. It is but a thin, purplish haze; only the powder, white and fine and mind-blowing, remains, clinging to his boots. Unlike them, he is perfectly whole, perfectly human, and yet he has no eyes; no eyes as she would know them. They are full and black and dead, as dead as her shepherd but steps away. Still, she is certain he can see her, certain he can see her soul. He is cold and colorless, but that thick vein, that freakish worm, pulses … pulses … pulses … he has a heart. She does not know him, not really, but she knows those scars near his temples, those adorable birthmarks that aren’t really birthmarks. A fright to be sure, he’s a nightmarish ghost, yet there is more to this man who is not a man, something deeper, like love, slipping from his dead right eye.
A tear.
She wants. She wants to reach out to him, to touch him, to know that he’s real. To know that this is just a dream. Yet she cannot move; it takes an eternity but to blink. She has fallen deaf, can no longer hear her own thoughts. She is screaming, screaming, screaming for him, and yet the emotion of it, the raw hunger of it, is lost; it is as if everything inside of her has stopped, even her heart. There is a final strike of that raging current, more powerful, more devastating than any prior, and as it strikes her blind, she can feel her very atoms slip away in decay. She is neither solid nor liquid, nor even gas; no more human than the soul that remains. She simply is. Like lovers embraced, Time and Mind are now one, drawing her into the maw of that dark black pool. It is a chasm of unfathomable madness and depth, a merciless abyss, and as that oddest of storms still rages, as the world she once knew stops turning and the last thing she remembers is a tear … she is nothing.
~ 12
It was Lynn who wiped away his tear.
He was turned to her, gripped, like a boy huddled round a campfire, haunted by tales of ghosts. His eyes were closed, but somehow he could see her; could see those perfectly blue diamonds melting into nothingness. What he had done. What he had done.
Her hand felt wonderful on his cheek as she brushed it gently. He wanted to hold her; wanted to tell her everything. Wanted to tell her how sorry he was.
He met her.
She felt his forehead. “My God. You’re burning up.”
He sat up, dizzied. The static was having its way.
The moon had risen quite high. In the distance, near the river, where mere moments before there had been celebrations, there were no signs of life. In the stillness, in this most silent of places, it was as if the world had but two hearts beating … and nothing more.
“We should get you home,” she told him.
He stirred, nodding, but there was more to say. So much more.
Finally, she spoke. “Kain, I—”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Lynn.”
Her lip curled in, just a bit. She said nothing; only nodded.
~ 13
Neither spoke on the way; twenty minutes seemed a day. From the haunting glow of the dash, he could see her in the corner of his eye. The wheels were turning, almost burning, inside of her. He had nearly come out with it. All of it.
They passed the Hembruff stead. Big Al’s Chevy 210 wagon was not in the drive. Except for a single lamp burning brightly near the door, the place was dark.
“If I know Dad, he’s lined up to get ice cream,” Lynn said. “It’s an annual ritual. Fireworks and praline. Gabe Milton makes a mint every July 4.”
They passed the spot where her pickup had exploded. The headlamps illuminated the ditch for but a moment, yet long enough for her to pretend to be checking her side mirror. They carried on without a word.
When they came up to her drive and turned in, both were struck at how gloomy the place was. It was only ten-thirty, not a light on anywhere. Apparently, Ryan was out late again.
“Stop,” Kain said.
The barn loomed like a dark castle against the spangle of stars. Strangely, its wide doors, usually shut—and shut they were, by Kain before they’d left—were open.
“Turn a bit,” he said.
Lynn looked at him worriedly. She did as asked, taking them off the drive and into the grass, the lights brought to bear on the outbuilding.
“Didn’t you close those?”
“What is that,” Kain muttered, more a question to himself. The light dropped off sharply on both sides of the headlamps’ purview, but there was enough to get a glimpse of something there in the grass. It was black and bulging, a mass of—
“Oh my God! Kain!”
It was Abbott. What was left of her; her head was just a bloody mash of flesh and fur, the entire right half gnawed to the bone. Her tongue hung limp. Her tail, it too chewed up, lay next to her like a dead snake. At first glance it seemed curled against the carcass, but no: it was completely detached. But what sent Lynn sobbing must have been that single, telling eye. It spoke of terror, of bloodlust and hunger … of pain.
At first, Kain thought it was Costello. Telling the siblings apart had, for him at least, been impossible. But where Costello was starved and dying, nothing more than bones, this dead thing was meaty. Still, he turned away a moment, drawing his mind back to the woods where Costello had attacked. He could see her now, crazed and hungering—could see that small white patch on her black—left—hind leg.
He turned back to the carcass. Rigor had set in, the thing stiff as nails. Slumped the way it was, a furry ball of rotting meat, it was hard to tell which leg was which. But when he could, there was no mistake.
Oh yes … this was Abbott.
There was more. Something that sent alarms firing in his head. It was hard to be certain in the uncertain light, but what looked like the same yellow-green goop that had dripped from Costello’s jaws had hardened on the fur.
Lynn was weeping. Trembling. “I have to get her,” she stammered, fumbling with the door handle. Kain stopped her.
“No … there could be a wild animal out there,” he said. “A coyote … a fox, maybe.”
She nodded. Sniffled. “So … so what do we do?”
“Get us up to the house.”
“What about Beaks?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going in.”
Lynn looked at him, puzzled. But then her teary eyes widened. “Are you crazy?”
“Listen,” he said. “If there is something out there, it could be in the barn. I’m just going to close those doors. I can check out the inside in the morning.”
He considered. He had no way of knowing if that crazed cat was about—assuming, of course, that it was the culprit. But if it was, and that horror was still out there, he would have to kill it. At the very least, make it think twice about sticking around.
“How could an animal open the doors?” Lynn said.
Kain regarded her somberly. He offered nothing. Still, he did consider one possibility.
She read his mind.
“Ray,” she said. “That bastard killed her!”
“Calm down, Lynn. We don’t know anything yet.”
“His pickup could be in there! He could be in there!”
“But why leave the doors open?”
“Because they’re always closed,” she said. “He’d expect me—or you, most likely—to check it out.” She regarded her dead pet, nearly slipping into tears again. She fought them back. “We have to call the police, Kain.”
He had to agree. The one thing she hadn’t mentioned—although it was probably foremost on her mind—was that if Ray Bishop was in there, the man wasn’t likely alone. And given Kain’s currently weakened state, it was unlikely he could fend off one man, let alone three. And when they subdued him … he didn’t want to think what they might do to Lynn.
“He could be inside,” Kain told her. “In the house.”
“And Beaks wouldn’t say boo,” she said. “He’s more afraid of Ray than anything.”
Unless the dog is dead, too, he thought. Still, none of this made any sense at all. Ray
Bishop was a lot of things, but even crazy Ray didn’t eat half of Abbott’s head.
“We’ll call from my parent’s place. I’ve got a key.”
“I’ll have to stay,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“What if your Dad drops Lee off? Or Ryan comes?”
“I’ll drop you at the stop, then. You can watch for them from there. Okay?”
Kain agreed. He eyed the house. Eyed those curious barn doors.
“Turn around,” he said.
She took the quickest route. Instead of backing up, she drove them across the uneven yard and started to make a U-turn in front of the farmhouse. As the lights from the pickup rocked up and down, crossing its old face, the house looked dead, quite abandoned. Not a home at all, but a horrible place where memories were best left forgotten. Kain had to wonder if Lynn saw the same.
And then, when they came round onto the drive, Lynn slamming hard on the brakes with a small scream, he had to wonder just what it was they were seeing now.
~ 14
It hovered before them like a freakish specter, damned and lost, haunts the darkness: furrowed clothes, awash in its victim’s blood; silent and single-minded; and in its hand, clutched at its side, its unholy weapon—a bloodied bat. But of course it was not a thing, neither ghoul nor phantom, for he, larger than life in the beaming lights, stood like a tombstone, unmoving, cold, and hard. His honey-brown hair, cropped close as it was, was perhaps his only familiar feature, for his face was strikingly white and splattered with blood. His dark, wild eyes bled with insanity.
“Ryan—” The name barely slipped from Lynn Bishop’s quivering lips. Even in the muted glow of the console lights, one could see the horror befallen her. The fear.
Her son stood a man possessed. His shirt, baggy and bloody, hung loosely over soiled jeans. His shoes were equally miserable. Scratches marked his arms and his face. He watched. Only watched.
Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller Page 30
