“What happened?” someone asked.
No one answered.
Jennifer walked to Tucci’s body and kneeled down. His hand moved; he was alive…if barely. She sobbed, overcome by the horror, a horror to which she had special insight. She’d seen too much. She’d heard too much. Enough was enough. The time had come to stop playing Sherlock Holmes. Tucci lay on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. Who was next? And where had Allison gone?
She grabbed the phone off the night table and dialed once. She waited, tears streaming down her face.
“Operator, give me the police. This is an emergency.”
Michael laughed hysterically. There was something disturbingly horrible about the sound, hollow, trebled and distant. And as it echoed throughout the seemingly empty building starting in the fifth floor hallway with its misty fog, it carried with it a message of frustration, then disbelief, then anger, one replacing the other, until the echo of the bellowing sound receded into the most uninviting reaches of the brownstone and dissipated into toneless vibrations.
He brushed off the accumulated dust that adhered to the uncovered surface and flicked away the lacing of spider webbings and insect matting. He stood back, lifted the flashlight, and trained the beam on the letters that were carved in the wood. He reviewed his initial reactions. He reappraised their propriety. And as he began to read the inscription once again, he broke into that same uncontrolled laughter.
He read:
Through me you go into the city of grief.
Through me you go into the pain that is eternal.
Through me you go among people lost.
Justice moved by exalted creator,
The divine power made me
The Supreme wisdom and the primal love.
Before me all created things were eternal,
And eternal I will last.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
His laughter continued unabated, until all the air had dissipated from his lungs. He whispered to himself, “Thank you, Dante,” raised his hand and simulated a tip-of-the-hat gesture. Once again he rocked with laughter, a convulsive laughter, which both appreciated the humor of his discovery and its preposterousness. The thought that a brownstone on West Eighty-ninth Street in the heart of the city of New York could be the entrance to the underworld, the portal before the River Styx, was ludicrous.
He quieted. Although the words seemed ridiculous, they were part of something sinister and real, something which he still didn’t understand. Involving Allison. Involving the church and the forced disappearance of numerous people over the years.
He kneeled down. Suddenly, he felt his blood rush from his body. There was someone behind him. Breathing on his neck. Short choking breaths like the efforts of a victim in the final stages of pneumonia. He reached down and felt along the floor for the gun, aware that the figure behind him was waiting. The snub-nosed barrel slipped into his fingers. Carefully, he drew the gun into his palm and slid his index finger around the trigger. His breathing stopped. He whirled around, flashlight pointed ahead, gun drawn, and finger ready on the trigger.
Father Halliran was standing directly over him. His face matched the picture in the Halliran file, now far more decomposed and hideous. Deep undulating wrinkles circled his skull, as if the skin had been strip-mined, and his cheeks and forehead were blotched with black and blue specks, the result of bursting corpuscles. The eyebrows were gone. So, too, were most of the lashes. The veins and arteries that carried the blood supply under the decayed skin stretched perilously close to the surface…distended, swollen and discolored from the advanced decomposition of tissue. And topping this vision of horror was a matted web of hair, choked with dirt, as if the old priest had risen from a grave beneath six feet of soaked earth.
Michael gasped, then focused on the priest’s eyes. There were no pupils. Neither eye had a distinguishable iris. Encased in cataracts, both were white like eggshells.
The old man was wearing a long black robe, which cuffed just below the Adam’s apple, supporting the layers of dried flesh that hung from his neck; the robe covered his entire frame, including his feet. His two spindly hands, tipped by claw like nails, were joined chest high; they held a gold crucifix, which reflected the hard light of the flashlight back into Michael’s eyes.
Michael squinted and moved the beam off the metal.
The priest stood still. Michael kneeled, motionless. Their eyes were locked on each other, his perceiving the challenge, the priest’s blinded to what lay before him. Yet, he continued to look down, as if he were cognizant of every move Michael made, as if Michael’s thoughts lay open before him and his future was in his power.
The priest parted his lips. His fragile diaphragm contracted. He let the air slowly out of his lungs, producing a low moan. He seemed incapable of forming words with the deadened muscles that supported his jaw. Slowly, his head began to swing back and forth. The gesture was communicative. It implied trespass and transmitted pity and remorse. With the slightest twitch of his withered head, the priest conveyed many thoughts, all of which carried the impression that horror had not yet begun and that once commenced could not be stopped.
The old man moaned once more, turned and walked, holding his cross before him, back to the staircase from which he’d descended.
Michael steadied himself. The sight of the priest had nearly stopped his heart. Now, moments after the initial shock, it was beating wildly. Yet, underneath his panic that same resolve with which he’d entered the brownstone remained. It was just a matter of subordinating primitive reactions to his inherent disciplines; the ability to reason, to apply logic to given stimuli, and to respond with calculated decision and uncommon self-control. But in the end, it was more self-deceit than anything else that caused him to follow the priest down the hall. Although his very fiber doubted it, he told himself that the old priest was just a man and that though the events of past days whispered that he was challenging the unnatural, the very essence of evil, there still was a logical explanation for everything, and that by retaining his composure and challenging directly, he could intersect and prevail.
He caught Father Halliran at the base of the staircase, grabbed him by the arm, flashed the light in his face, and unsuccessfully tried to spin him around. The old priest, unexpectedly strong, continued slowly upward, one step at a time, the cross extended in front of him, his eyes glassily staring straight ahead.
“All right, my friend,” said Michael. “It’s about time you let us in on the game.”
The old priest turned his head slightly in Michael’s direction, pulled his arm free, and turned away again, dismissing Michael’s presence like one would shoo a bothersome gnat. He began to chant softly in Latin.
“I want to know why these things have been happening! I want to know who’s behind it. I want to know the object of the game. What are you after? And I swear to you, if I don’t find out, I’m going to break that cross over your head. Christ and all.”
The priest stepped off the stairs onto the third floor. He was oblivious to the cries, the clutching arms and hands that pummeled him, as he continued to climb, and the angered, distorted face that followed immediately to the right of his shoulder.
Michael screamed. “Talk, you bastard! Talk or I’ll crush your skull!” He was quickly approaching an unrestrained fury. “Why were all those people playing charades? Chazen, Mrs. Clark, the others. How did you know so much about Allison? About her father? The psychiatrist’s reports? Did you see them?”
He shook the priest again. The old man stopped and slowly turned his head. His eyes were glowing, more open and piercing than they’d been before. If they reflected real emotion, Father Halliran was mad.
Michael backed off; the glow hurt him.
The priest nodded, as before, pityingly, then climbed to the fourth-floor landing and disappeared around the banister. Michael hes
itated, then with the beam of light the only path through the darkness, tore up the stairs, ran down the hall, climbed up the last staircase, and caught Halliran, as the priest began to cross the hall to his apartment.
“Do you want me to play games with you?” Michael cried angrily. “Then let me assume from recent reading that this place is the entrance to the underworld and that you’re the resident bogeyman. Congratulations. I just hope your union has a good pension. If not, I’ll renegotiate the deal.” Michael realized his words sounded ridiculous, but he’d run out of intelligent things to say. And even so, saying anything was useless.
Halliran continued to chant.
“Say something, for God’s sake!” screamed Michael at the top of his lungs.
Gatz charged through the front door of the precinct house and hurried down the stairs. His expression was serious. His movements deliberate. Beside him was a patrolman.
The patrolman opened the rear of the squad car and got in, as Gatz slid into the front seat next to Rizzo.
“No idea where they might have gone besides Learson apartment?” asked Gatz.
“No.”
“Did you have the line checked?”
“Yes. Off the hook.”
Gatz nodded, his concentration intense. The car sputtered, whined, and sped down the block.
“Where’s the apartment?”
“In the Fifties.”
“Go through the park,” Gatz ordered.
“Yes, sir,” replied Rizzo.
“Rizzo,” Gatz announced, “I got a feeling that tonight something is going to happen.”
Chanting continuously, Halliran opened the door that had been so frustratingly closed.
He walked toward the window in which he’d invariably been seen sitting still and quiet. Before it stood an antique wooden chair. As Michael followed the man, he noticed the severe angles and inflexibility of the seat. It looked uncomfortable. It must have been torture for the old arthritic cleric to sit hour after hour in the same position against its hardwood frame. But as Michael flashed the light about, he realized that the old priest had no choice. There was no other furniture in the apartment.
In the center of the room he turned the beam toward the bedroom. The door was open; there was no furniture in there either. Could it have been possible that the entire world of the priest, his entire existence, was tied to that baroque piece of furniture? That he sat there and slept there and ate there. He shivered. There was no sign of any food or kitchen utensils.
The old man sat down, held the cross in his lap, and looked out the window. “Bastard,” yelled Michael. “Bastard. I’m going to tear you apart with my bare hands. I’m going to choke what I want out of you.”
Michael moved around the side of the chair and wound his hands about the old priest’s neck. He began to squeeze. The old man continued to chant in unintelligible Latin.
“Bastard! Talk, you bastard!” Michael raged.
Halliran continued to chant, but now the rhythm was hyphenated by choking. His windpipe was being depressed; breathing was becoming difficult. But no matter how hard Michael squeezed, the priest did not defend himself. Instead, he just continued to hold his shaking hands about the cross.
The chair toppled over; Michael and the priest sprawled across the floor. “I’ll kill you,” Michael cried, struggling.
A heavy object swept out of the darkness through the soft light that trickled in through the gray-tinted window. It landed heavily against the skull. Again and again! Blood splattered onto the barren floor. The sound of flesh being pulled across
the wood. More groans. More blood. And then silence.
Allison opened her eyes.
She shook her head. She was groggy. Where had she been? Where was she? And wherever she was, how had she gotten there?
The air was still cold and dry; the wind continued to blow fiercely. And she wasn’t wearing a coat. She was freezing.
She raised her eyes from the sidewalk, looked around, and then looked straight ahead. She gasped. Across the street was the brownstone. Dark, quiet and uninviting.
A thought. A sense. She suddenly knew. Michael was in there.
She stepped off the curb and paused, sensing the weakness in her limbs as they shook from the effect of the freezing air and wind. Her teeth chattered mercilessly; she rubbed her hands together. Then, summoning strength, she ran across the street and into the brownstone.
The hall light above was still shining; the air possessed a continued foggy density.
She walked to the mirror and lifted the pair of gloves off the table. They were Michael’s. He was possibly within reach, certainly within the sound of her voice. She turned from the mirror, which held her sallow reflection, and screamed, “Michael!” The sound echoed overhead and died. “Michael, are you here?” she repeated in a loud, quivering voice. There was no answer. “Why did you come here?” she said more softly. “Why?” And then she cried again. “Michael!”
She fidgeted with the thin leather gloves. She would have to climb the stairs into the darkness and inspect each apartment. Perhaps he was in one of the bedrooms, shielded from the sound of her voice by the thick plaster walls. Or maybe he just wasn’t able to answer for some terrible reason.
She pulled at the glove fingers, turned them inside out, then threw the gloves back on the table.
“Michael, please answer me,” she screamed again.
She waited momentarily; there was no response. She grabbed the staircase rail and began to climb. The yellow fog sped away, as she ascended the old wooden steps. She stopped halfway up and shook the banister. It was still as sturdy as ever. At least there was something in the brownstone on which she could rely. She shook the banister again and step by step climbed the rest of the way to the second floor.
She turned sharply at the top of the staircase, bypassing the barely visible inscription, and walked down the hall. “Michael!” she cried again.
She looked up the staircase to the third floor and sighed deeply, relieved to see that the small yellow light that jutted from the wall at the top of the landing was working, illuminating the stairs. She went on slowly, remembering once again the night she’d stepped on the cat.
She reached the third floor, walked toward the far end of the hall, and stopped abruptly. There was something on the tile: a large round stain with smaller streaks and stains reaching down the corridor. Puzzled, she kneeled and touched the substance. It was liquid, viscous, and warm. She lifted her hand, smelled the ends of her fingers, and rubbed them together, each one tinted with the fluid. And then she knew. It was blood.
She gasped and looked along the floor at the smaller pools and scratch lines, which suggested that a body had been dragged along the floor. She looked in the other direction. The trail seemed to end in the middle of the hall, as if the body had been picked up and hurled out of the brownstone. She trembled. “Michael, please help me! Please, wherever you are.” Then she fell to her knees and began to crawl, exhausted, incapable of standing, heading for the door to her apartment, and the only safety she knew in the entire building.
As she was about to pull herself up and insert her key into the lock, her hand touched something hard and cold. She lifted the dull piece of gold-colored metal and examined it closely. It was a cufflink. Fourteen carats. With the initials MSF: Michael Spencer Farmer. Covered with blood.
She screamed and clutched it in her fist, while the other hand reached for the immediate security of her crucifix. Frantically, she inserted her key into the keyhole that seemed to be dancing all over the metal plate, unfastened the lock, pushed in the door and fled from the hall. Leaning back against the wall, she closed her eyes and gasped, “Michael! No!” She rubbed her forehead, then grabbed strands of her hair, pulling them out at the roots. “Help me! Help me!” But there was no one there. Only darkness. “I confess! I have sinned,” she cried. �
��Sinned. But leave me alone. Whoever you are, leave me alone!” Her hysteria increased. Her nails dug into her skin, leaving long scratches.
Suddenly, she whirled around, snapped the lock shut, rammed the bolt across the door, and closed the guard chain. She turned again, studied the dark apartment, ran across the room to the granny lamp and pulled the switch. Nothing. She tried the main light, but it too was out. She sped across the room to the coffee table and pushed the button on the small lamp. It went on and illuminated the room. She was alone.
Shuddering, she returned to the door to check the locks once more. Then she rushed to the bedroom hallway, poked her head into the kitchen and the bathroom. They were both empty. The kitchen light was out; the bathroom light was working. What was going on with the lights she wondered, as she carefully traced her steps to the bedroom, tried the main switch and then, it being out, flicked on the wall lights. The bedroom was empty, too. She was safe; at least while she was in the apartment. But was she really safe? She had no phone. No means of communication. Sooner or later she’d have to leave the apartment and enter the halls. And no matter what time of the day, it would be like night in the corridors. What could she do? She looked around the room, then, suddenly, bolted from the bedroom and tore down the hall into the living room. The front windows! She could open them and scream. No matter that it was late. Someone would hear her, go for help, and bring the police.
She raced around the couch, past the lamps, the guardian grandfather clocks and the fireplace, finally stopping in front of the draperies. Furiously pulling them apart, she gasped! The windows were gone; in their place was a solid wall. “No!” she screamed, as she rammed her fists against the wood. Again and again she pounded, her knuckles swelling, her dry eyes aching. She shuddered. The back window faced a solid wall. From there, no one could hear her cries. She was trapped!
She turned nervously away. “Oh, Mother,” she whimpered, as she thought of home. She needed her mother now. More than anything in the world. Her mind was wandering, and as she began to pace, her brain and body slowly welcomed the unwelcomed return of the dizziness and nausea to compound the fierce headache that had been building since she’d awakened in the street. She was alone. Shut off form the world. By whom? For what purpose? And Michael. Poor Michael. Her pace quickened. She needed someone to protect her. She stopped and looked at the television. Yes, she could count on it. She turned it on. The tube buzzed and sputtered. A test pattern! She changed the station. Music. The Star-Spangled Banner. Again. Nothing. Again. Finally! The late show. She stared at the screen. It was alive, filled with movement and noise. The myriad of colored dots swallowed her consciousness. She continued to walk about the furniture, but now her eyes remained fixed on the screen. And they remained so, until her feet and body could no longer bear the stress. Painfully, she wrenched her focus from the set and moved down the hallway to the bedroom, where she fell to her knees next to the four-poster and laid her head in her trembling hands. Her fingers touched skin that at any other time would have scourged her senses, but she perceived nothing. “Angel of God, my Guardian dear” she prayed hypnotically. The television buzzed in the background. She continued her prayer, but the rest of the words were garbled and lost in the palms of her hands. If only she could get back to that church and sit in the confessional again. It had been her only moment of peace. She rolled her forehead on the bedding, lay inert for a few moments, then looked around wildly. Footsteps. Again? Back and forth they went just like on those other nights. Thumping. Then she realized the sounds were not coming from above.
The Sentinel Page 24