The Well

by Jack Cady

  Tracker stopped reading and leafed pages. The entry for June I was long, the script in a disciplined hand. It marched for page atter page. He continued flipping until he arrived at the entry forJune 10:

  “Don’t know what is happening. Been working hard every day but have not visited the room where Vera sits. Suppose I should have made certain that the old man was eating, but experience shows that when you booze, the body has a way of cramming food at various times. This morning I awake, attempt to go to the kitchens, and find the door locked. The by-pass system from inside the room is blocked. I’m in prison. I wonder for how long. Later. It is twenty-four hours since I found myself imprisoned. Is it to be fatal? The old man may be crazy, but is anyone that crazy? Will continue work. Pretty thirsty. Have four bottles of beer. Ration them. I find that I stomp on the floor a good deal. I fear that my father Theophilus locked that door and then died or got hurt…The Devil entered the middlewest in 1801 riding on a horse. At least we know that the first preacher arrived then, and he was riding on a horse.”

  Another long entry. John skipped quickly:

  “I am afraid now. No sound can intrude here. Sometimes I get the feeling that great activity is going on around me. In an excess I drank the second bottle of beer. I’m resigned. I pray for a miracle, but doubt if any miracles are reserved for me. Will die here of that I’m sure. The mind is still clear, and while it remains so my job is to reconstruct everything I know of this room to see if there is a way out. I fear I’ve designed too well. I’ll not be the first man who dug his own grave. Will spend three hours on the job. Failing, I will return to work.

  “Later. Simple physics has me beaten. Father, if you are alive I hope your mind is clear. I would not like for you to be enjoying this.”

  Tracker balanced the journal in his hands and felt something of the sadness he’d felt when he discovered himself drawing a sketch of his father. He turned to the next entry:

  “Getting weak, only a sip or two of the beer left. Imagination swirls. Time, time…imagine yourself a visitor in the Tower of London. You dwell among knightly armor, crown jewels, ancient battle flags, stone axes, portraits of kings. Step from those museums into the busy streets filled with taxis and wedged traffic. You would temporarily be unsure which world was past, which present. And you would understand that there was only mechanical, not spiritual, difference between them. Time slides in this house. A moment in the thirteenth century is a little different than a moment in the twentieth…”

  The next entry showed an unsteady hand, although the entry was not scrawled:

  “June 25. Again I imagine movement around me. Terribly weak. Dehydrating. Last few hours listening to the radio, which tried to sell me soft drinks. If you get to this house, if this house is still standing when you find this room and journal, the key to staying alive here is to keep walking and doing…”

  John was nearly at the end of the Journal. “Keep walking.” Could he still trust Justice?

  “June 26 the whole thing is to tell the truth. Weak.”

  “June 27 laugh like flower, you should not have left Sarah I tried to be a good man messed up though.”

  One entry was left, one John had already read, but he glanced at the last words of Justice Tracker:

  “dying, dying father father burn, burn it, burn.”

  He put down the journal and looked at Amy at the far end of the room. He found that he liked to look at her, even though she no longer looked young.

  “You’re ugly, you’re old and ugly and you brought me here. I hate you, hate you.” Her voice was tinged with hysteria, her hands slowly rose until they covered her face, then fell as slowly away, sliding down her cheeks and wrinkled neck.

  “Look at what you’ve done.” She stood, then slowly moved toward him. He backed away, almost stumbled. What was happening? Amy didn’t talk this way. Her voice was a sing-song of hatred…Vera’s voice…She advanced toward him slowly. As she came she began picking slowly at her skirt, hoisting it up her leg. Her motion was exact, careful.

  The silence, the muffled feeling was returning. Force and heat were again at his back. He turned, and it still was at his back. His legs were weak, his hands trembled.

  “I love you so much, I can explain it easy.” Amy’s voice was suddenly not only natural and sounded like her at her best, but it was full of relief that she finally understood, even if he did not. And with understanding she seemed to have reclaimed herself. She was smiling — not the mask smile — although she looked a little older. The muffled feeling was beginning to disperse as she walked to him, took his hand. “Let’s get something to eat, I think I’ve figured something out.”

  “I’ve something for you to read — ”

  “You can tell me about it. Come on.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was Theophilus Tracker, John Tracker’s grandfather on his father’s side, who uttered the dying screams when John entered Justice’s room. Until that time Theophilus had been alive. His death was real. Theophilus, having created evil, was sustained by it. He tramped like a lead-footed soldier in its service. His destruction came when the force of the evil he created became ascendent.

  What killed him is conjectural. Certainly, Theophilus could have killed himself. He was sufficiently clever to rig even that macabre death. Still, though one might have expected such a display from Vera, Theophilus seemed capable of too much fear.

  More likely he was destroyed by his self-created force of evil, which ironically took the form of Vera Tracker.

  Had John Tracker not lived for years in revulsion because of his youthful memories, he would have realized that Theophilus was not quite the low and simple man he seemed. Theophilus was, after all, the son of Johan.

  In the Tracker family there was rebellion of son against father. John rebelled against the intellect of Justice. Justice rebelled against the seeming perverse attitude of Theophilus. But the most important rebellion was of Theophilus against Johan.

  Johan built to defend against the Devil.

  Theophilus built in an attempt to exceed, and thereby subdue, evil, by becoming the master of its Power. And for years he was the master, until it exceeded him.

  All seem guilty, all seem innocent. Like Vera, Theophilus fought against what he considered a cheapening world. Like Vera, he fought by rendering a diabolic order, out of which emerged the house of the Trackers, clean-lined and sane, given that less than sane premise.

  While Johan was a hold over from the Middle Ages, Theophilus was a modern product; which was why in fundamental matters they seemed much the same. The difference between the work of Johan and Theophilus was only the difference in style. In the house of the Trackers, time was like the repeating octaves on a piano. The executioner of 1650 stood in exact and definable reference to the executioners of the 20th century.

  The house of the Trackers rose as a work of satanic art in Opposition to centuries of dogma, and in the end it was more Theophilus’ creation than it was Johan’s. Theophilus was not superficial, although his life made him seem so. When he was young he was known as a tomcat. As he grew older he would launch into tales of exploits with women. Some of the tales were recorded in Justice’s journal, and were intended to announce Theophilus’ independence from Vera. They bolstered his ego, and they aroused the perversities of Vera. Theophilus lived a life of drinking and violence and sex, and building.

  When his grandson John Tracker returned to the house, Theophilus was still in marginal control of the evil. When it became known that the house was threatened, Theophilus was destroyed as power consolidated for its stand, for its survival. John Tracker would henceforth become the focus of power, its embodiment. That was the plan.

  During the years after Vera’s death, Theophilus’ madness culminated as the power sustained and informed him. The abilities of a man in his nineties could not cover what h
ad happened.

  Theophilus built in a frenzy that paid no attention to approaching sightlessness, to weak hands, to a worn body. No doubt he finally became weary beneath the self-created forces that got beyond him. He was surely tired of life, and terrified of death. Justice’s journal shows Theophilus’ desperation at the time of Vera’s death.

  He had built on that house for more than seventy years with innovative genius, and his work did not save him. Because it was not, ultimately, his own.

  The house of the Trackers seems little different from other great houses begun in the 19th century and completed in the 20th. Some of the architects, such as J.P. Morgan, died commending their souls to their makers. With his dying screams, Theophilus did the same.

  As they walked to the kitchens slow footsteps followed. The footsteps did not speed up when theirs did, but they also didn’t fall behind. Tracker prepared for another confrontation.

  Hard to believe, harder not to believe. Had Theophilus somehow been able to contrive a Vera who was half corpse and half robot? Even that nonsensical notion seemed more acceptable than the proof of the detached force of evil Justice had described.

  Theophilus had first created evil. Then he collaborated with it. Now, the instrument of his creation was loose in this house, and it spoke through Vera. Evil had even gone beyond Vera.

  What Justice feared had come to pass. John Tracker was sure that evil was manifested in the gray dog, if it was the same dog; and he had seen that dog for the first time when it was several miles from here. That same dog had come back to confront him, impervious to his bullets, as it had been impervious to Theophilus’ bullets all those years ago.

  When they got to the kitchens he left Amy and went further into the huge dining hall to look onto the snow-covered terrace. The snow was still falling heavily, though not so bad as before. It seemed the storm was beginning to blow itself out. He checked his watch. Hard to believe they’d been in this house only a little over a day. It was Wednesday now, early afternoon. The cold and empty terrace beyond the leaded windows was unmarked by tracks or wind. The dining hall was cold. Antique furniture sat austerely in the otherwise plush surroundings of heavy purple drapes, thick red carpet, plaster-crumbling walls from which paper peeled like husks. Chandeliers above the long table provided small reflecting surfaces in the gloom.

  Vera. He knew he would still have to confront her. It occurred to him that the only time he’d felt really good in this house was when he was prepared to take that dog by the throat and throttle it. The awful heat had disappeared when he’d grabbed the rifle. He walked to one end of the dining hall, picked up an ornate Victorian lamp and threw it through the leaded windows. Glass shattered, a cold draft poured in as he watched the broken lamp disappear into the snow of the courtyard.

  Shouldn’t have left Amy for a minute, but he’d needed a few moments with himself, needed also to be away from Justice’s presence that rose up from those journals. Besides, his best decisions were always made alone. Now he was grateful to find the cold, business part of his mind still in some working order. Until now they’d been running, confused and frightened. All right, he was still frightened. He and Amy were trapped, quite literally, but even if you were trapped you could fight back. He had made some discoveries, he had more knowledge, however unwanted, even unacceptable, it might be. This house manifested the enemy. Tracker decided to disable the house.

  The first step was to knock out the current that ran this place. The force of evil didn’t survive from electricity, but taking current from some of the traps would be a start. Not a great one, though, he realized. It might plunge them in darkness, but half the time they were in darkness anyway, and at least a part of the house would still operate on the electricity that came from outside.

  Amy was opening cans when he returned to the kitchens, her aged fingers moving slowly.

  “Something broke,” she said.

  “I tossed a lamp through a window. I got mad and fed up.

  “Good. I think that’s the right thing to do, but a lamp isn’t what broke.”

  “The window sure did.”

  “So did something else. Far off. Maybe even outside.”

  “Like the truck?”

  “It was heavy like a truck, but I don’t think you could hear the truck being torn up this far away.”

  He figured you could. If there was a force in this house that played the scale of time, then who was to say it couldn’t foreshorten sound distances too? Not him. Not anyone.

  “We’ll see,” he said. “If it’s a scrap you want, then it’s a scrap you get.” He crossed the kitchen to the weapons cabinet. Rifles, a shotgun, two police .38s. He picked up an old center fire .32. “Hold your ears,” he told Amy, and pointed the pistol through the open doorway and fired. The far wall of the next room was punctured, and a small stream of chalky plaster ran out.

  “Just checking your work,” he yelled into the house. He grabbed a .38 and emptied it into the next room. More plaster. Silence.

  From far off came the sound of steel crumpling, like a truck being picked off the ground and dropped.

  Amy was crying, and looked even older.

  “You lost your temper,” Tracker said. “Why can’t I lose mine?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You raised some hell with me in Justice’s room.”

  “I was just acting.”

  “It was a damn sweet act.” His heart and lungs felt like they were working harder than they could, but that might be because of his frustration and anger.

  “Don’t you see. I was trying to understand and now I do.” Her voice rose in a near wail.

  “Okay, you said that before. Now if you explain it we’ll both understand. Let’s hear it.”

  “You’re letting it in. You’re letting it in.”

  She really did seem to understand something.

  “When we’re confused, or weak, or when we have trouble between us this thing gets bigger. When I attacked you, there was serious trouble.”

  “You were acting?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you fooled it.”

  “In a way. Anyone who acts works themself up to what they’re acting. It comes out false, otherwise.” She almost smiled, then turned back to her work. “You have to eat a lot when the food’s ready. You need strength. I need your strength.”

  He started to tell her that he at least had a plan, then decided that something, someone, might hear. “I love you,” he said.

  She turned to him. “I love you too, but look at me. I can’t help how I feel about how I look.” Her forehead was wrinkled, and the shadows that undercut her high cheeks were deeper. Her hands were thin.

  He went to her. “It will be all right, we’ll get through this — ”

  “I tried to tell you earlier,” he said. “Vera is dead. I found out about it in Justice’s journal.”

  “You don’t dare lose control again,” she said, “Now come and eat.”

  “It’s true,” he told her. “Vera is dead, and somehow animated.” He tried to explain what he had read in the journal. She listened seriously, and seemed trying to make up her mind about whether he, John Tracker, had lost control.

  Half an hour later, when he began to pull blueprints from Justice’s room, Amy pretended to read the journal entry. He watched her, and believed that he was once more denying the evidence of her senses.

  John studied blueprints, and hated to think of what they must do. He spent more time than he wanted, because he had to be sure that Amy knew how to read a blueprint. It was like buying insurance, he thought. You never really expected to die, but you still bought insurance.

  When he was satisfied he located the easiest entry to the cellar. He had left the .38 in the kitchen but kept the .32 in his belt. He wasn’t sure why he both
ered to carry the thing. When the force he was up against had appeared as the dog, a .45 had barely slowed it down. He supposed he carried it because it represented an opposing force, even if one that probably wouldn’t do any good.

  He thought of the well at the center of the house, the wellspring of all that had happened.

  He checked the flashlight and turned to Amy. “I’m afraid this is going to be bad, I wish I could protect you better.” He was surprised to hear the genuine warmth in his voice; what he’d mostly intended was an apology. More than warmth…the sensibility of love, which didn’t seem to care that Amy was old and frail. He put his arm around her, drew her to him. It was all he could do.

  She looked at him, smiled. “I can act, and I can tell when someone else is acting. You aren’t.”

  She was right, but his emotions still surprised him a little.

  They descended normal stairs, which held no traps but were slick with ground water and slime. He flashed the light on the steps. No one had passed this way in a long time, the scummy slime was a thin, untracked layer. On down, carefully, slowly, to arrive at the bottom of the steps.

  The cellar was a musty, lime-smelling place that oozed water. They were on a wet dark plain above the dark well that the blueprints showed to be in the subcellar. The well lay at the very heart of the house. Sulphur seemed to float in invisible streams through the blackness. Tracker figured what they really smelled was sulphuric acid released when the limestone was shot for the freeway.