Inside.
None of this was real, Cindy told herself. It couldn’t be.
From the moment the arms had come out of the wall and tried to crush the life out of her, she hadn’t been able to accept any of it as real. It was just a dream, a bad dream, a nightmare, but it wasn’t bona fide, right here and now, indubitably true. Couldn’t be. Not for a moment.
But she’d almost died—if you die in a dream, do you die for real?—would have died, no question, if Niki hadn’t stopped him, it, the thing in the wall, from killing her. And then it was pulling Niki into its awful embrace, changing her, making her into a negative image of herself, black hair white, pale skin dark, jean jacket bled of color. Pulling her into the floor, right into the floor.
It wasn’t real, couldn’t be, but her dream-self knew that she had to try and help the dream-Niki all the same, or the nightmare would kill her, could kill them both … .
It was the boy on the stairs that had convinced her. He wasn’t changed. He had color, his black-and-white contrasts weren’t reversed. He’d stood there on the stairs, the horror of what he was seeing etched across his features. Her throat was locked, voice trapped, so she’d called out to him with her eyes—Help us—knew he understood, but was too scared to help, why should he, who were they to him—
And then they were gone, her dream-self and the dream-Niki. The nightmare in the wall had stolen them away into some dark place, an other place, a place so other, dark and chill, that only a nightmare could be real here. The monstrous man loomed over them, twice their height, talking to them as though they were children, and the things it was saying, the awful things …
This was Niki’s father, she realized.
Real.
In his eyes a dark glee, remembering all the children he’d tormented with his sickness.
Real.
She wanted to fight him, to shut the slippery wet sound of his voice out of her mind, to make him pay for all he’d done, but in his presence she was just a child again, helpless and small. Superimposed over his features were another father’s features, her father’s features. The air was heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke, the stink of burned flesh.
Her flesh.
She could feel the pain erupt across her lower torso, red-hot embers pressed against the skin, awful voice cutting through every defense she tried to raise to shut it out—
teach you, teach you, little cunt, teach you, who the fuck do they think they are, laying me off, teach you
—the stinging slap of an open hand across her face.
“Please God … ,” she murmured through lips that memory recalled as swollen.
—the closed fist that pummeled her soft belly—
“ … don’t let this …”
—tied to the bed, an army of sewing pins marching up her forearms, each waking one tiny drop of red, so red, blood on the pale skin—
“ … be real.”
The memories were too powerful. Standing before the monstrous nightmare man, trapped in his world, child-sized and helpless, listening to his madness as it spewed from between those blubbery lips, all her hard years of trying to forget, of learning to be strong, of prevailing with dignity, hard-earned self-esteem, were stripped away, and she was the helpless child again that her father, in his madness, had tormented in his bouts of drunken rage.
She was the world once again, microcosm reflecting the macrocosm, on which he took out all his anger.
Real. It seemed so real.
She was the helpless child, beaten into submission.
It was all too real.
The nightmare man’s gaze locked on hers, trapping her in place. She couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out. In her head- “Please, don’t …”
—a small voice—
“ … hurt me …”
—pleading as she waited for the pain to come again.
Inside.
It wasn’t just because Jim was brave, not even that he felt responsible for Cindy, that he—maybe—loved her, was for sure infatuated with her, that he had left Ti Beau behind and gone through that door. A deeper need rode him as he stepped inside the building, a need to strike hack.
Injustice had been too much a part of his life for too long. He was always the observer, distanced by the camera lens, freezing the moment, safe behind his refuge of camera angles and f-stops and film speeds, standing apart from the accident victim, corrupt politician, abused child, murder victim, grief-stricken family, brave kid dying of leukemia, desecrated graveyard, rape victim, drunk driver without a scratch on him, abused wife, corporate executive shrugging shoulders at the chemical spill, AIDS victim, homeless family, racial intolerance, all the thousand and one sorrows and terrors that had grown so commonplace that, unless you were on the receiving end, you had to just shut it all out. Or you couldn’t live a normal life.
But what kind of normal life was it, where this shit went on, day after day, the endless litany, newspapers, TV, radio all deploring it in their editorials while it was the very lifeblood of their business?
It wasn’t sane, not even close to normal.
Horror and pain and hurting and grief—they were now the norm.
No matter where you turned, or how hard you looked to escape it, injustice bred like a cancer in the heart of normal.
It was because of injustice that Jim went through that door. It was because he couldn’t stand aside and observe the news, edit it into bite-sized chunks with his photographs anymore. It was time to shit or get off the pot, time to take a stand.
The stand he chose was to fight back.
For Cindy and Niki.
For the Slasher’s victims.
For everyone touched by the despair of injustice.
He wasn’t a hero; he was just a man who knew he couldn’t stand by any longer.
So he went in, into the nightmare land that this abandoned building had become, and injustice caught him as well. The midnight man loomed over him, twice his size, reducing him to the vulnerability of a child.
Jim’s fingers reached up to close around the gris-gris pouch that Ti Beau had given him, but it fell apart in his hand when he touched it, became dust and ash and lost hope. The midnight man’s gaze grabbed Jim’s, and rage though Jim did, he was made helpless with just that one cold dark blaze of the monster’s eyes.
Inside.
It was the same man, Thomas realized with shock as the bulk of the nightmare man arose before him. Unhurt, alive, and twice his natural size.
Thomas’s mind went back two years, present dissolving, past and present mingling. He saw again—
The traffic violator turning in the rubble-strewn field, gun in hand.
The bullet fired from Thomas’s gun that took out the back of the man’s head.
The fat corpse lying in a porcine heap, sprawled in the dirt at his feet.
The autopsy.
The burial.
Himself, up before the Police Commission, being cleared of any possible charges for killing the man.
The first of the Slasher’s victims. And the subsequent victims, one by one.
He heard the voice of Wilkes, the woman from the ME’s office, as though she were standing right behind him. lie seems to be getting stronger with each attack. Not just more brutal, but actually physically stronger.
Teddy Bird towered over Thomas as if he were a child.
And then Papa Jo-el’s voice, a hollow sound as though it spoke not just from memory, but from beyond the grave: What walks the night streets is an esprit—a spirit of the dead. An evil spirit, what we call a baka.
Teddy Bird, back from the dead, bigger and better than life.
And then Jack Whiteduck: You can carve yourself out a piece of the day and call it your own, but no one owns the dark … . The night belongs to the windigo.
Teddy Bird, a corpulent whale of a monster, here in the alien dark that held sway inside this building. An urban windigo, born of the injustice that bred freely in the inner city’s streets.
Today Thomas drew his weapon in frustrated anger, confronting a distilled essence of all that was wrong with the city that he’d claimed as his own, to serve and protect, life on the line, day in day out, trying to make a difference. He’d made no difference. If this monster could come back from the grave and carry on with its evil, then the rule book had to go out the door. The concept of right and wrong, the judicial system that tried so hard for all its Haws, justice itself, had become a mockery. Only vigilante justice remained.
So he drew his weapon and took aim at the monster looming over him, but before he could fire, the midnight man slapped the gun from his hand. His 38 went skittering off into the dark. The corpulent face pressed close to his own, pig-eye gaze locking onto his gaze, freezing him in place.
Naughty, naughty boy.
The sensation of that voice filling his head was like putting his hand in a deep puddle of wet vomit. His fingers went up to the medicine pouch his brother had given him, but like Jim’s gris-gris, it had never been meant to protect against such an intense confrontation. The pouch came apart in his hands. He could feel the clay mask cracking, Hakes falling off.
How many times do you have to be told that it isn’t polite to point a gun at someone, even if it is just a toy?
This was madness. How could Bird be so large?
It’s not a nice thing to do at all.
He was dwarfed by the monster’s awful bulk. Helpless.
Teddy’s going to have to teach you a lesson.
Inside.
After ten years, Niki was finally face-to-face with her father once again. Ten long years, but it was as though no time had passed at all. He was still twice her size, still had the power because he was stronger. She might as well have been a toddler again, because there was no difference, no difference at all, except for one thing.
This time Niki wasn’t scared.
TWENTY-TWO
Outside.
Frank made the two calls at a pay phone on Gracie Street. He considered making a third, to the local precinct to ask for backup, but he hung up the receiver and went back to his car instead.
What was he going to tell them? How was he supposed to explain what had happened to the building when he couldn’t even come close to understanding it himself? And if he did try, he’d be lucky if the backup he called in didn’t just take him in, wrapped up in a straitjacket, a direct run to the Zebrowski Institute for testing.
He drove back to the building where he’d left the others. When he first got out of the car, nothing seemed to have changed. But then he took a closer look at Thomas’s brother and Ti Beau. Whatever mojo juice they had looked like it was running out. Veins stood out at their temples, their arms were corded with muscle strain, their bodies shaking.
“Look,” he said, nervous, but approaching them all the same. “You’ve got to let me help.”
And do what?
Ti Beau’s eyes were closed. John’s were rolled back in his head, only the whites showing. The sound of Frank’s voice triggered a reaction from them. They began to speak, each taking a turn, as though sharing the one voice.
“Something …”
“ … happening now …”
“ … son …”
“ … too …”
“ … strong …”
“ … in my …”
“ … God …”
“ … head …”
Ti Beau suddenly drew back her head and screamed. The flickering ribbon of their protective barrier flared with an explosion of blue light. Frank jumped back, then moved forward as Ti Beau and John collapsed.
He managed to grab enough of a hold on each of them to be able to ease their bodies to the ground. Kneeling beside them, he lifted his head. The protective barrier was gone. The building was the same except that its stain was slowly spreading outward again.
Then he realized that the drumming was gone.
He looked to each end of the street, but the strange mystic shimmering that had once hidden the two spectral figures had vanished as well. Utter silence grabbed the street and held it in a choking grip.
Frank got his arms under Ti Beau’s shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged her back to the car, away from the insidious spread of shadow that continued to grow from the sides of the building. He went back and got John, then stood there by the car, staring at the building.
He should be in there. With Tom. He trusted his partner and Tom had asked him to look after things out here, but that didn’t cut much anymore.
His gaze went to the spreading stain as it continued to inch away from the side of the building. He had to get John and Ti Beau farther away. Had to figure a way to help Tom. Had to figure some way to stop all of this … .
Christ, it made his head hurt.
There came a sudden rumbling from underfoot, a deep underground murmur like an earthquake tremor. Frank’s gaze shot back to the building. He could actually see it shaking. A large crack appeared in the facing wall and traveled down the side. A deep, hollow grinding sound came from the foundation.
TWENTY-THREE
Inside.
Finally she was here, right at hand, the errant daughter, disguised behind a tough veneer of street punk, hair dyed, angry eyes, all a lie. He could see through the lie, see the little girl trapped behind the facade. Who had done this to his little girl? Harridan wife, do-good social workers, stole her away from a father’s love, a father’s influence, father knows best, always, always, little girls loved their daddies, loved them in special ways.
He reached out a hand to her and she spat at him.
“Keep the fuck away from me.”
Foul-mouthed, voice hard. No, no, it was all wrong, all a lie. Where was the welcoming hug, the happy smile, the sweet lips, so sweet, kiss him here and here and here?
They’ve told you lies, filled your pretty head with ugly lies. Daddy loves you.
“Daddy’s a fucking pervert.”
Anger flash, red hot, scalding the cool logic of his reason. Take a breath, let it out, calm, be calm, don’t scare her, they taught her fear, stole her love. It was up to him to win it back, but be firm, daddies are firm, hard, hard as rock, they don’t spare the rod, feel it grow.
Little girls have to learn to respect their fathers.
Dark, dark hate in her eyes. Like a wild animal, scared, hurting, win her trust.
Daddy loves you.
“You just don’t get it, do you?”
They told you lies.
“Nobody’s told me anything I didn’t already know. You’re just a sick fuck. You’re a slime.”
Anger flash, no, stay calm, so hard to stay calm, so hard, hard, like a rock, needs her little fingers, sweet kisses … .
Don’t—
“You’re a pervert.”
Anger flash, burns, burns. Why does she make it so hard? Hard to stay calm, hard in her hand, if she’d only take it in her hand … .
Don’t—
“You’re a fucking monster.”
All wrong, all wrong. Hurtful words, lies, dirty lies, dirty words, stop telling Daddy lies.
He was the nightmare man, he was the midnight man, he loved all the little children, but he loved her best, needed her, needed her so bad, couldn’t she see, couldn’t she, couldn’t she just put her mouth … there, stop the words, stop the lies … .
His gaze locked onto hers, holding her.
Your daddy’s a good man. All the children love him, love him best of all.
Scorn in her eyes.
“Is that what they say when you kill them?”
I don’t … it’s just … they have to learn … not to cry so much … I don’t mean to hurt them … I never hurt them …
“Maybe it’s better when they die, then they don’t have to live remembering what some sick fuck of a pervert did to them.”
Don’t—
“But you like to hurt them, do
n’t you?”
I—
“That gets you off the most, right?”
Stop—
“Because you’re just a pervert.”
The power in his gaze, the nightmare man’s hoodoo, the midnight man’s cold control, bore down on her.
Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!
“A sick pervert.”
Anger, red hot, cold hot, blade sharp hot, cut through skin to bone hot.
LIAR!
“Oh right. Like you’re normal.”
Calm, calm, baby’s head is filled with lies, not her fault, don’t hurt her, hold her, put her little mouth … there … .
But he couldn’t move any more than she could. The hoodoo in his eyes arced back and forth between them, a fiery burning witchy power. He fought for control, but that just seemed to make her stronger.
“You’re dead. What are you doing here, when you’re supposed to be dead?”
Too much love in me … .
“So if you can come back, what’s to stop them from coming back too?”
Then … ?
“All your little friends.”
They … they’re …
“Let’s ask them how much they love you.”
Can’t. They’re all gone … gone away … .
“But you came back.”
Special. I’m special. I’m the midnight man.
“I can hear them.”
Can’t. They’re all gone … .
But he heard a playground sound, little voices, dozens of little voices. It was distant, but it seemed to come closer. And behind it, behind all those little voices, he heard another sound, a rhythmical slapping sound … .
“Maybe they’re midnight people, too.”
Can’t be. There’s only …
The voices were growing closer. Behind him, he could feel something behind him … .
one midnight man.
Inside.
Niki stood up to her father, for all that the hoodoo in his eyes had trapped her just as it had her companions. And the longer she stood up to him, the easier it got. She didn’t know why the others fell prey so easily to his power, while she could resist. Maybe it was genetic, his power, his tainted, sick blood running in her veins; maybe her anger, her need, ran that much deeper than theirs. She didn’t really care how it worked, just so long as it did. Just so long as she could finally put to rest the specter of despair that he’d laid over her life.
From a Whisper to a Scream Page 25