His only hope lies in the fact that he's all too aware of the sheer volume of alcohol he's imbibed tonight. That should mean he’s alive. But whatever it is that he can feel behind him, it's getting closer, gathering strength. Soon enough he's going to know what it is and he doesn't want to, not ever. If they still had their weapons he might have chosen to put a bullet in own brain, but the only choices he has if he wants to kill himself are the steak knives or the gas oven, and neither option is appealing. His liver may well save him the bother and fail all by itself, but it's a long shot. Besides, suicide would probably just land him in more trouble and the question remains, is it better to keep living with the horror he can already feel or to die and face the unknown?
Eventually the drink gets the better of him. He flops back on the mattress, focusing on the ceiling as best he can until he can’t keep his eyes open any longer and unwillingly falls asleep.
He dreams the same dream, only tonight it's more vivid, more real. He can feel the heat in the orange flames. The screams so close he can taste the blood. Wet sounds fill his ears. And it's all happening to him. It’s his body on fire. His screams. His pain. It’s his skin being peeled from his muscle, his muscle ripped from bone, things tearing into his organs while something keeps him alive. It's never over, it'll never end. A demon with red skin and black eyes leans over him, opens its mouth and breathes out with a acrid breath so strong what remains of his stomach clutches and heaves. The demon reaches out a long hand, inhuman fingers with too many knuckles and talon nails that it uses to scrape the skin from his face in fleshy curls. He howls in agony and the thing before him laughs. ‘You're mine,’ it shrieks in a voice like metal cutting through metal. ‘Soon you'll come to stay and I'll never let you go.’
Rick wakes, pulse racing, heart hammering, low wail dying in his throat. It feels like he was gone for hours but it's still dark, it’s still night. His throat hurts, raw from screaming except he hasn’t been screaming, couldn’t have been otherwise the others would have come running. He sits up, looks down at himself and he’s surprised to see he's still wearing his clothes, still wearing his skin. But he knows now what's waiting for him in the shadows, in the dark places behind the facade.
Hell is waiting.
He remembers it now, the end of the battle, the crazy man with no eyes running towards him, wailing like a banshee. He didn't see the blade until it was deep in his stomach, pushed in to the hilt, blood covering the gnarled old hand that held it. His blood. No one else saw it. They were busy with their own opponents. He has no idea if they made it but he didn't. He remembers falling to his knees when his legs gave out, smacking his head against the thick tree trunk behind him, the cold wet grass soaking through his pants as the screeching maniac pulled the blade back out. The pain flared, white hot and incredible, searing through the numbing shock, embracing him until it was all he knew. Then it was gone and for one blissful moment he looked up at the stars, watching them wink out until everything went black. He remembers his own death.
And his subconscious mind remembers Hell in macabre detail, even though he can’t have been down there very long before he was pulled back. The void in his memory is starting to fill with the vivid, horrific knowledge of the horrors of Hell. It won’t be long before he loses his mind. Maybe that won’t be a bad thing, because despite being here he doubts he’s been saved.
He doesn’t deserve to be in Hell! He isn’t a killer or a rapist, he’s just a petty criminal who tried to make amends after he came face to face with the really bad guy.
He needs to stay here. He can't leave. Because he only has one place to go and it's the last place anyone would ever want to be. Matt and Luke seem to be in control here, to a point. They have to be able to make it so he can remain even if the others leave. He could even ask them to create more. He doesn’t need much: a roof over his head, hot running water, ideally the bar down the road for when he wants company. Not a lot, not really. He's not even hungry most of the time. Given the alternative, he’ll settle for a lot, lot less as long as he’s allowed to stay, as long as Hell can’t get him. These are mad thoughts but that was just that one dream, if it was a dream, a moment that lasted a fraction of a lifetime and was still more than he can bear. An eternity of it is unthinkable. The idea alone sends his mind skidding towards insanity.
Back when he was a child in Sunday School, the vicar made it perfectly clear that Hell is for very bad people; murderers and paedophiles. Evil men and women. All he’s ever done is con people out of money. He knows it was wrong, he’s always known it. But there should be a difference between wrong and evil. He’s spent the last two weeks helping people, saving people! He never imagined that he’d already crossed the line between forgivable and damned.
The first time he conned poor, unfortunate Ben Massy out of his lunch money the kid told him he was bound for Hell, he just never believed it. Until now it has been a fictional place, a nightmare used to frighten and brainwash children. Now it’s a reality worse than anything any Hollywood writer has ever dreamt up.
He isn't going to sleep tonight. He doesn’t think he’ll ever sleep again. There's no reason to if he's dead. He gets up, pulls his shirt sleeves down and wriggles his fingers. When he looks at them a flash of memory overlays them with the image of bloody stumps and if he looks down he knows he’ll see his crushed, severed fingers on the floor in front of him. Clamping one hand up over his mouth, he makes a dash across the landing to the bathroom and throws up in the toilet bowl. Sliding to his knees he grips the white porcelain and his stomach heaves again, acid vomit spewing from his mouth: burning tequila and flat lager.
It’s a while before the retching stops. He's shaking as he flushes and eases up to his feet, turning on the faucet and using his cupped hands to bring cold water to his mouth. A few deep breaths and a couple of cups later he's feeling a little steadier. He dries his hands then heads downstairs, getting a glass of water from the kitchen before hesitating in the hall.
Grandma Nancy is just another creation from Matt and Luke's memories, but she might know something about what brought her back. She didn't give much away before but she also didn't seem confused or surprised to be here. The others haven't stirred despite the noise he must have made upstairs so unless he wants to wake them, the old lady is his only option right now.
He opens the door quietly in case she’s asleep but she isn’t. He doesn’t think she sleeps, doesn’t think she has to. He pours her a sherry without a word, from the bottle they’ve left on the small empty bureau next to the door, and takes it over to where she’s rocking slowly back and forth, knitting needles clicking together in the process of creating another toy that’s going to come to life and join its friends in the walls.
He sets the petite glass down next to her and she smiles up at him, no surprise, just gratitude. He pulls one of the high backed chairs around until it’s close to hers, his back to the fire, and he’s about to sit when she suggests,
‘You look like you could do with a drink too, my dear.’
She’s right. Despite his unsettled stomach he pours himself a glass and sits down, sipping the sweet, strong liquid, getting used to the taste. It has a slight burn to it, like caramelised sugar, and it feels like fire in his throat. He almost throws up again but manages to swallow.
When he can speak, he asks, ‘Do you know why you’re here?’
She stops knitting and hesitates before lowering the half-finished pink circle into her lap.
‘I don’t, dear. I don’t think I’m supposed to be. I was in another place, somewhere bright and warm and now I'm here. But I’m not worried because I think I’ll be going back when it’s over. And you boys keep bringing me tea and sherry. You’re all so good.’
‘How do you know you’ll be going back?’ He tries not to let fear creep into his voice.
‘It’s just a feeling. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, dear?’
His eyes rise to her face. She’s no longer an old lady, not Matt
and Luke’s Grandma, she’s something else, something scary. Black seeps into the whites of her eyes, her teeth elongate to sharp points while her face melts and her chin drops, making her mouth impossibly wide.
Rick scrapes his chair back across the floorboards, dropping his sherry glass which spills and rolls but doesn't break. He glimpses the reflection of the fire in the cut crystal and when he looks back Nancy’s just an old lady again, gazing at him with concern in her kind eyes.
‘Sorry.’
‘Are you all right? You look as if you’ve had a shock. Have another drink and you’ll soon feel better.’
He doubts that. ‘Do you know... where I’ll go, afterwards?’ He isn’t sure he wants to hear the answer but he has to ask the question.
‘I presume you’ll go home with the rest of them,’ she says, like she hasn’t just turned into a vision of horror right in front of his eyes. Maybe she knows what’s really going on, maybe she doesn’t.
He remembers the landlord, and the definite feeling that he did know more than he was letting on. Of course there’s no way of contacting him, none that immediately springs to mind. He popped in then he vanished. There has to be a way, though. Perhaps Matt and Luke can summon him.
He leans down to pick up the fallen glass before standing unsteadily and asking if there’s anything else Nancy needs. She tells him that she’s fine and that he should get some sleep, so he bids her goodnight and closes the lounge door behind him. In a way, he envies Matt and Luke. They have something to do to keep themselves occupied, to pass the time. Not sleeping leaves him a good seven or eight hours alone and he’s not the best company for himself right now. The last thing he needs is the opportunity to sit and think but he’s stayed in better equipped low-rent motels. There's no television, no wifi. There isn’t even a radio. There is the bookshelf behind which the wool creatures are hopefully asleep and when he looks he finds an array of books on a hundred different subjects from aviation to zoology, and fiction by everyone from Isaac Asimov to Timothy Zahn. Opening the glass doors he tilts his head and scans the authors’ names, quickly coming across his favourite, Christopher Brookmyre. He slides the book out with reverence as a crazy thought slips into his mind. Perhaps he put it there. They’ve been presuming only Matt and Luke can change things here but it could just as easily be all of them, couldn't it? Last night he’d been thinking about beer when Joe found bottles in the fridge. And now this; his favourite novel by his favourite author.
It’s been a while since he read Brookmyre’s Pandaemonium, the plot of which revolves around a group of high school students who inadvertently find themselves at a retreat half a mile from a top-secret military base where the US army has just opened a portal through which demons are escaping. It feels oddly like the right thing to be reading given his predicament. He takes the book over to the couch, glancing at the dying fire, the orange sparks from the last spluttering embers. He doesn’t want to rekindle it, doesn’t ever want to see fire again.
He’s opening the book cover, skipping to the first page of narrative, when another idea comes to him. If he and Nancy have been brought back from the dead, there’s no reason to think that any of them made it. They could all have been killed. He should feel sorry or sad or guilty but he doesn’t. All he can feel is horror and terror at his own plight and misery famously loves company. But if the others are having the same hallucinations they haven’t said and they certainly don’t look as shell-shocked as he feels. He can’t think of any way of confirming his theories tonight so he settles down to read, all the time wishing for the landlord to pay them another visit, hoping he can make it happen.
~..~
They lie on the bed in a tangle of bare limbs, forehead to forehead, palm to palm.
‘You know we could do anything, right?’ Luke murmurs and Matt nods against him. Luke squeezes the sweaty fingers pressed between his own. ‘What do you want to do? What would you create?’
‘Nothing. I’ve got everything I want. I’ve got you. I’ve never wanted to change anything. I know you think I should have had a different life but I’ve never wanted anything other than what we have. Except for this.’ He tightens one leg around Luke’s knee. ‘Now I have this. I’m happy.’ A small quirk of his lips and he adds, ‘Although pumpkin pie would be great. Remember that diner in Queens, years ago? Best pumpkin pie ever.’
Luke chuckles. ‘That’s probably what you’re getting for breakfast now.’
‘Fine with me.’ He presses his foot into the back of Luke’s shin. ‘Actually, you know what else I want?’
‘What?’
‘I want it to snow like it did in Whistler. I want to build snowmen and win another snowball fight.’
‘I won that snowball fight!’
Matt ignores him. ‘It was so beautiful. If we ever settle I want to be somewhere that gets lots of snow.’
It’s what Luke was thinking earlier, when they were at the roadhouse, about living in a small town where the winters are bad. But he doesn’t say so. Instead he lets the sentimental mood fade before he opens his mouth again.
‘I’ve been thinking about Rick. I think... no, I know I saw him, right at the end, I turned back to look at them and he was down, covered in blood. I’m sure he was dead and if he’s dead and he’s here, then maybe we're all dead. It would explain Grandma Nancy being here, and all the things we keep changing.’
Matt pulls Luke’s hand up to his mouth and kisses his knuckles. ‘I’m not dead,’ he whispers. ‘And neither are you. I can taste you, smell you and feel you. You think I’d feel all this if I was dead?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never believed in Heaven being an actual place but if this is it, I’m happy to be wrong. If we can finally have what we want it’s okay with me.’ He strokes Matt’s shoulder, sweat-damp and hot under his hand. ‘Could be that's why neither of us is freaking out. We've deliberately not done this forever. Whatever made this house and put us in it could have found this in our heads too. We fight it our whole lives, the attraction, even though there’s never been anyone else around. No one else would ever know and still we never did anything about it. Then we get here and wham-bam, we can’t keep our hands off each other. Really?’
The expression on his brother’s face isn’t what he expects after that. Matt’s smiling. And out of everything Luke’s said in his little speech, he chooses to pick up on just two words. ‘Wham-bam?’ He'd punch him if he could extricate his hand. ‘We were at the centre of the apocalypse. You don’t think that we deserve to stop living for others and start to live for ourselves? This is what we’ve wanted since we were old enough to know what it meant, you know it as well as I do. We’ve always belonged to each other. We sleep in ratty motels on stain covered sheets, we shower in cockroach-infested bathrooms. We spend half our waking hours on the road and the other half fighting creatures from Hell. So, yeah, when we finally find ourselves in a warm room in a great big bed with clean sheets, a bathroom with two toilets and a walk-in shower big enough we can have sex in it, the dam was bound to break because finally we’re feeling safe enough to let it. It’s no real surprise. Doesn’t mean that we’re dead and in some mythical place. So you need to present a different argument for the prosecution in the trail of we’re dead vs. we just got lucky because I’m blowing that one out of the water.’
Luke stares at his brother until he gives up trying to think of something to say and finally just settles for, ‘Huh.’
‘What?’
‘I keep forgetting how much bullshit you talk.’ He gets a slap, although he has no idea how Matt’s hand got to his ass. ‘I swear Rick didn’t make it,’ he repeats himself, low and serious so that Matt doesn’t take the piss again.
‘Maybe he didn’t, but he’s here, so something saved him for a reason. Maybe it has to be the six of us.’
‘But why? They’re just a random group of people. You and I, I get, but them? They’re four strangers we picked up along the way. We’re not the bloody Avengers.’
; Matt looks at him curiously. ‘I don't know how you even know who they are. Emilie calls us the Scooby Gang. I'm Fred, you're Velma—’
‘Hey! If anyone's Fred, it's me. You're Daphne. Besides, I never wanted any other company than you.’
‘You’re the one who wanted Joe to tag along.’
‘I didn’t think that leaving him at that motel with a dead body in our room and the rest of the guests assuming he knew us was such a great idea. That’s not the same thing as wanting him along.’
Matt never wanted him to join them, and even when they weren't having sex there wasn't much Luke wouldn't do simply because Matt asked, possibly because he rarely asked for anything. But Luke couldn’t leave Joe behind to deal with whatever followed, so they got a second car at the first opportunity because Matt was right, neither of them was used to having other people around. They’d been alone in their own little world for too long to share.
Alive or dead, they're still together and that's all that matters.
~..~
It’s snowing. Emilie stands at the window of her bedroom and watches the flakes fall onto so much accumulation it has to have been falling heavily all night. The sky is grey with it, the ground white. It’s beautiful, glistening in the empty branches of the trees, carpeting the ground, covering everything. Virgin snow. Living in California all her life she hasn't seen much of it. But one Christmas she and her Mom spent a weekend shopping in New York and it started to snow just as they arrived at the hotel. It was one of the most wondrous sights she ever saw.
The view outside the house is breathtaking.
The House at the End of the World Page 17