Where Stars Won't Shine

by Patrick Lacey

  But now she knew for sure. Death was infinite. Death was forever falling toward something that never arrived.

  The pit was warm at first, what she imagined hell to be like, but it grew cold, then frigid, until her face came alive with a prickling sensation. She opened her mouth and screamed.

  And was shocked to hear her own voice, to see something other than infinite shadows. The light was blinding, like staring at the sun that had shunned this town. She thought she heard angels, wings flapping softly, but what she saw was more like a devil.

  Inches away from her face lay a severed head, the wound dripping drops of dark blood onto the floor. The eyes were wide, staring, and the mouth curled into a mischievous smile. “Welcome back,” the head said. “Feeling refreshed?” Annabelle giggled. She lifted her head upward and reattached it to her body.

  Ivy swallowed. Her throat was bone dry. Her tongue was stuck to her teeth and it took every ounce of effort to move it.

  Annabelle brought a hand to her chest in mock surprise. “Silly me! You must be dying of thirst. Here, have some water.” She turned on what sounded like a faucet, filled a glass, and tossed it into Ivy’s face. That accounted for the frigid sensation along her cheeks and chin.

  Ivy opened her mouth, caught just enough liquid to manage a swallow. “Let me go.”

  Annabelle giggled again. “Let you go?” The voice did not match the girl. It was too high-pitched, too child-like, but she must have been nearly twenty, maybe older. “You’re free to go whenever you want. Within reason, of course. You can go downstairs to the party but you can’t leave. That’s against the rules.”

  “Party?” Ivy searched her memories and retrieved the invitation hurled through the diner’s window. “The party.”

  Annabelle nodded. “It should be starting any moment now. That’s why I needed to wake you. Tucker will be awfully mad if you’re late. You’re one of the guests of honor. He likes you, you know. That’s why he didn’t kill you. That’s why he offed your boyfriend instead. He knew it would drive you mad, that you’d eventually come here, to Marlowe, your new home. He likes the strong ones. They’re a bigger challenge.”

  Ivy moved her hands, certain she was bound to the chair on which she sat but her wrists and ankles wiggled freely.

  “Like I said.” Annabelle lifted her head, tossed it in the air a few times. “You’re free to go. In fact, we ought to go now if we want a good seat.”

  Ivy stood and nearly fell. Her legs were weak and shaky. The room spun. It wasn’t the one she’d checked into earlier. This room was more of a suite, with a small kitchenette and living room. The bathroom in which she’d woken was twice the size of her own back home.

  Correction. Back at your sister’s home. The place where you live rent-free and rarely contribute to anything.

  Mariah must have been worried sick, pacing the kitchen, drinking too many cups of her muddy coffee, hands shaking with each sip.

  Fat chance of that. Tucker was right. Mariah is probably living it up. You’ve become more of a burden than a sister. Her life would be much better without you.

  Annabelle watched her, tried to hide a smirk.

  “Something funny?” Ivy tried to sound tough as she finally regained her balance but her voice was too hoarse, her lips trembling.

  “It’s nothing, really. You are strong. I can tell just by looking. Tucker wasn’t kidding around. But what does it matter if you’re strong? You’re stuck here for the long run, and by that I mean eternity.”

  Ivy opened the mini-bar and grabbed a warm bottle of beer. She studied the label. PBR again. She smashed it against the neighboring safe. The glass shattered, spilling lukewarm foam onto her feet, which she saw now were encased in expensive looking heels. Her legs had been shaved (she didn’t bother with landscaping her body these days; it wasn’t as if anyone would be seeing her naked any time soon) and she wore a dress of some sort. Red and white polka dots, quirky yet fashionable.

  She held the bottle like a knife and stepped back into the bathroom. In the mirror she saw a stranger. Her face was covered in makeup. Gone were her crow’s feet and smoker’s lines. Her skin was smooth to the point of perfection. She looked, dare she say, pretty. It reminded her of another life. One where she’d been in love. One where she’d been able to hold down a steady job without seeing blood at every turn.

  “I hope you like it,” Annabelle said. She’d tied her scarf back around her neck. Ivy noticed that she too wore a dress. It was hard to imagine what the girl had looked like alive, but she had likely attracted a good amount of attention with her body.

  “Where are my clothes?” Ivy gritted her teeth, extended the bottle outward.

  “Those old ratty things? I tossed them. Besides, you look beautiful. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Ivy did not answer. Instead she walked carefully toward the exit. “Make one move and I’ll …” She trailed off.

  “And you’ll what? Cut my head off?” Another giggle. “Bit late for that. You can only die and come back so many times. We should get going.”

  “The only place I’m going is out the front doors.”

  Annabelle rolled her eyes, a teenager frustrated with her mother. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”

  Ivy ignored her. She backed toward the door and, satisfied the girl would not make any sudden moves, she spun around, opened it.

  And froze when she heard the music. It was distorted, out of tune, chaotic. It made every inch of her newly shaved legs come alive with bumps. The soundtrack reminded her of the circus. It was coming from downstairs.

  The door to the television studio opened.

  Amy was still certain this was an illusion. The room in which she sat really was just a janitor’s closet. Her mind tried to rationalize her surroundings but her gut knew better. Nothing in Marlowe was an illusion, no matter how unnatural it may seem.

  She sat on one of the bleachers, where earlier that night (or had it been yesterday?), she’d seen countless audience members cheering. Now the room lay empty.

  Or it had been empty moments before.

  Now a shape stepped forward, shadows covering its features.

  That felt like a blessing. Amy didn’t want to see whatever waited on the other side of the room or in the hall beyond. She wasn’t sure her mind could handle any more horrors. She felt ready to come undone. Her pulse moved too quickly, hadn’t slowed since they’d passed the town line.

  She’d been awake for the journey back to the hotel. She’d seen everything in painful detail. Several dead people carried her from the PT Cruiser back to the hotel. These weren’t your average zombies. They may have looked like walking corpses but they spoke with an intelligence, albeit with horribly contorted voices, that made her shiver. They were far from brain-dead. Once inside Hotel Marlowe, they brought her to a room on the third floor where she was stripped naked and tossed into a bathtub. Foam and suds threatened to spill over. The bubbles smelled rotten, as did the water. Beneath the white frothy surface, the liquid had a brown sheen to it. She felt anything but clean as they sponged her body. For a long time she suspected they would rape or drown her, perhaps in that order, but they were disinterested as they cleaned her every nook and cranny. After, they dried her, put on the gown she now wore, and brought her back to the studio. There she’d sat in silence. Until now.

  The figure stepped closer so she could see some of its features. It was a man. He was tall and his skin did not look as decayed as the others. In fact he almost seemed … alive.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  The voice cut through her. She felt its knife-like point slicing as her mind recognized the owner. “No,” she said, scooting back on the bleacher.

  “Did you miss me?” Zeke stepped into the light. He was covered in a layer of sweat, his skin oily and slick. He wore an expensive looking suit that did not suit him in the least. Normally he wore horror movie and metal shirts. Always black. His hair had been trimmed and styled instead of spiked
up like a porcupine. He was not the same man she’d spent the last year and a half with. “What do you think? You like my new look?”

  “Let me go.” She didn’t mean to sound too desperate but her voice shook beyond her control. “Let me out of here.”

  “If you hadn’t noticed, you’re not tied up.”

  “Your friends threw me in here and locked the door behind them.”

  Zeke nodded. “We couldn’t have you wandering off before the festivities began. Did you get my invitation?”

  “You could’ve killed me.” She touched the wound and winced. They’d put fresh gauze over it after her bath, though it didn’t help much. It still bled plenty.

  “I’m sorry about that. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength. I saw you sitting there, looking so damned scared, and I couldn’t help myself. I like it when you’re scared. If we’re being honest, it kind of turns me on.”

  “You’re sick in the head. I was wrong about you. Your parents, your teachers, everyone else was right. You may have built an empire with your serial killer fan club but it wasn’t harmless at all. It changed you somehow. Made you into a monster.”

  He snickered, wiped a tear of laughter from his eye. “Monster, huh? You have no idea.” He lashed forward, a snake striking toward its prey. She pictured his tongue spilling from his mouth, long and slithering and forked, just before he extended his jaw much too far and bit her face off in one clean chomp. This close, she couldn’t help but stare at his eyes. Except they still weren’t his eyes. They belonged to Tucker Ashton.

  He did not blink once. There was movement in the pupils, like something swam within them. “He’s watching you now, Amy. This very moment, he’s watching and waiting. He can’t wait. This is his big day, after all.”

  She felt herself slipping again, more tears coming on. She fought the urge, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. “Why a party?” She tried to look away but failed miserably.

  He shook his head, grabbed her chin so she was forced to stare. “Not just any party. A reunion. And it all … starts … now!” He clapped his hands.

  In response the door slid further open. Shapes shuffled inside the studio. Some she recognized from her detainment. Others were fresh faces, using the term lightly. All of them had been injured beyond repair. A severed limb here, a gouged wound there. Every one of them dead at the hands of Tucker Ashton, yet resurrected somehow in this place, this alternate town made from nightmares. The logic of it all hurt her head.

  “Let’s get going,” Zeke said. “We’ve got such fun in store. The night is young.”

  The dead came for her. They lifted her into the air and carried her. Had she been at a rock concert, she would’ve just been crowd surfing toward the stage, toward the main act. Except in the here and now, the headliner was not going to play her favorite song. He had something much worse in mind.

  From somewhere nearby she heard music.

  TWENTY

  THE MAN WITHOUT a jaw reached into Ethan’s pants. Not his pants but the ones he’d been forced to wear after waking in the hotel. They’d taken his wallet, looked at it with a passing glance and transferred it to his new uniform, a suit very much like those he wore at his day job. At the time, he hadn’t cared. In all likelihood he wasn’t making it out of here alive. He had no use for credit cards or cash. But now, watching the corpse study the contents of his personal life, his gut wrenched.

  Because there was more than just currency in there.

  As if hearing Ethan’s thoughts, the dead man stuck his bloated fingers into the wallet and pulled out a small paper square.

  Ethan tried not to seem fazed but the idea of rotting hands touching something so personal, something so beautiful, was enough to make him tense in his seat.

  The man noticed Ethan’s reaction, studied the paper, then unfolded it. He cocked his head in confusion. Though he had no mouth, his train of thought was quite clear. What is it?

  “It’s nothing,” Ethan said. “Just give it back to me. You have no use for a little girl’s drawing.”

  Another cock of the head, his shredded flesh dangling in response. A picture? From who?

  Ethan thought about playing the sympathy card, begging for the picture back, but something told him this thing couldn’t be reasoned with. It no longer felt remorse. It no longer felt.

  The dead man stared at the picture, studied its lines and curves. The longer he did so, the more soiled the image felt. Ethan thought back to the day his daughter had handed it to him. Princess Lisa, smiling as wide as her lips would allow, revealing the gaps where baby teeth had been extracted by way of string and creaky door. Smiling like nothing could make her frown, like nothing in the world could invade her magical kingdom.

  How wrong she’d been. Dragons were quite real. Maybe not in the literal sense but metaphorical beasts lurked around every corner. One day you could have a happy, healthy girl and the next she was battling for her life. But Lisa was a fighter, as was her mother, and she’d do just fine without him.

  But what about the money? Childcare is damned expensive these days, especially for single parents. They’ll fall to pieces without you. You’re the glue in this equation.

  He tried to quiet his thoughts. If he was going to die, he’d like to do so with some semblance of dignity.

  The dead man looked at Lisa’s drawing for a moment longer before crumpling it into a ball and tossing it to the floor. Ethan screamed, reached for the paper, but it stuck to the man’s shoe as he walked into the crowd.

  Ethan shook, his hands forming fists. He opened his mouth to scream but the voices around him rose in unison, drowning out the sounds of a man who’d lost much more than a couple of stick figures.

  After bathing and dressing him, he’d been led downstairs. Past the bar where he’d drank stale liquor. Past the front desk where he’d seen his first corpse of the night, into a large ballroom that seemed much too grand for the Hotel Marlowe. Several crystal chandeliers hung above him, on a ceiling that seemed higher than the building itself. More proof this town did not play by reality’s rules. As if that wasn’t already apparent.

  All around him, Tucker’s victims clapped and murmured amongst themselves, voices raspy and mostly incoherent from lack of use. In the corner of the room, next to a tray of what looked like moldy cheese and crackers, stood an old fashioned record player, the rusty speaker more like a cornucopia. The music was horribly distorted, the vinyl grooves played countless times before. It was something his grandmother would’ve listened to. If he closed his eyes he could imagine the frail woman sweeping her apartment and trying to dance despite the arthritis in just about every joint. Except that was a happy memory. This song sounded wrong, out of tune. He covered his ears but the melody—if you could call it that—traveled through his fingers.

  The crowd’s laughter and applause died down. They were drawn to the stage at the end of the room. It was perhaps two feet from the ground, large enough to fit three seats that resembled thrones.

  The closest door to the stage, looking more fit for a castle with its ornate design, opened. A man stepped out. He would’ve been unrecognizable if it weren’t for his eyes and the smirk that never seemed to leave his face. Zeke took a bow.

  More applause, more shouting from the dead.

  From behind Ethan, someone tapped his shoulder. He spun around and spotted Amy. She wore a gown and her eyes had been swollen shut from crying. He hugged her tightly. There was nothing romantic in the embrace. He just wanted to touch something that still had a pulse.

  Another familiar face broke through the crowd, wearing another extravagant dress. Ivy looked ready to faint. Gone was her air of determination from earlier. “What the hell is this about?” she said, nodding toward the stage.

  Ethan shook his head. “I’m not sure but if the invitation is to be trusted, it’s a reunion.”

  Amy dabbed her eyes with the sleeve of her new outfit. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

 
“It’s useless.” Ivy pointed toward the front lobby. “I checked every door. They won’t budge.”

  Ethan thought of the hotel’s floor plan. Surely there had to be a utility closet that hadn’t been turned into a studio or some other impossibility. Which meant there could be a pair of wire cutters hanging around. “What kind of lock? Chain or combination?”

  She shook her head. “There aren’t any locks. They just won’t budge. It’s like they’re frozen.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Ethan loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt, and opened his mouth to speak.

  His voice was cut off by the feedback from the microphone that had been placed on stage. It hissed for a few moments, the sound loud enough to bring a physical sensation to his eardrums. No one besides himself and the girls seemed to notice.

  Zeke straightened the mike and adjusted it. “Thank you all for being here.” He smirked, held in a laugh. “Not that you had any choice.”

  More unnatural laughter from the crowd. It sounded more like moaning.

  “We have three very special guests with us this evening. Celebrities, if you will. One of them rarely does appearances anymore. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. First up, let’s give a hand for the man who created our king, our fearful leader, our one and only ruler. I’m talking about his old man, Mr. Brad Ashton.”

  The crowd thundered with applause at the mention of Tucker’s father. The man next to Ethan, cheek busted open from who knew what, clapped so hard, one of his fingers bent too far backward. It dangled at an unnatural angle. He kept applauding, eyes staring lifelessly toward the stage.