She looked back up to him. “No apology necessary.”
Ulysses stretched out his hand towards Anastasia; he opened his fingers and nodded. Anastasia reluctantly let her hand leave her knee and her fingers intertwine with his.
His hands were colder than hers were. “Listen, please…”
He closed his eyes again and gripped tighter with his hand, to him it must have seemed as though he was exerting a lot of strength.
“I'm sorry, what's your name, darlin'?”
“Ana.” She stopped before she said her full name. It just seemed easier and proper.
“That's a pretty name. Please listen, Ana, things are gonna get really desperate. I'm not gonna be around to help him through any of it. “Ulysses raised his other hand and made a circle around the room with his finger. “All this ain't gonna save me for much longer.”
Anastasia quietly nodded.
“He's gonna need someone to be by his side, or he's not gonna make it. I didn't have anyone to help me through it, and you see where I ended up.”
“He's very strong…”
Ulysses gripped her hand with more force. Anastasia was shocked with how much strength he had conjured, and wondered from what well inside him he had pulled it from.
“Don't lie to me, please. Do you love him?”
Anastasia stared into the face of the old man, she couldn't believe the words that had come out of his mouth. She didn't know why any of it was relevant to someone who was dying, and surely had much more pressing issues than his son's loves and hates.
“I don't know…”
Ulysses pulled himself up from the bed and leaned towards Anastasia at an angle that would be dangerous to him if his strength suddenly gave.
“If you don't love him, you need to leave now. You need to leave this room and walk out the door of this place and forget you ever met him.”
Anastasia wasn't sure if it was Ulysses not letting go of her hand or if it was her not giving in that kept them joined.
“I know it's going to be bad. You don't know how bad it's already been.”
“No Ana, you're the one who doesn't know how bad it's already been. You have to make a choice.”
“I'm with him now, doesn't that mean anything?”
“Negative. I'd like to tell you that it does, but it doesn't. When this started to go wrong, she left.”
“The Sword Witch.”
Ulysses smiled. “Yeah, that's her. Sword Witch.”
“I saw her.”
Ulysses grip loosened, but it would take a lot more than that to untie their fingers from one another. “You saw her?”
He had a look on his face like he wanted to believe, but was too tired and too broken to.
“I saw her, I swear to you. She's still out there.”
“You didn't tell him, did you?”
“He knows, Ulysses. He's seen her too.”
Ulysses head fell back into his pillow, and just the hint of their fingertips remained touching. Anastasia was afraid that the old man might just die right then and there.
But he didn't.
“Do you love him?”
Anastasia had her head turned towards the door. Three steps for her and so fast that he'd never see her go. She could run — she should run. This was all going to get worse and worse, and the pain she had just witnessed on this old man's face was nothing compared to the pain which was sure to come.
The hallway called to her.
The night and the hunt…she watched the machine over her shoulder, soaked in Billy's father's blood, churn to keep someone alive who had died long ago.
The blood spoke to her as an angelic choir would urge a fool forth.
A broken, lovesick fool.
Anastasia closed her hand tightly into Ulysses and she squeezed. “Yes, old man, I love your son.”
His eyes were closed again and he spoke no more. Anastasia listened as his breathing and his heart slowed and she felt a little more life leave him.
But she knew better than anyone that Ulysses Purgatory was not quite dead yet.
~34~
HOOF SCRATCH
BILLY PURGATORY DID TRICKS in the empty parking lot behind the VA clinic. He had called them tricks, but it was more like pacing if you were a normal person. He'd skate from one end of the parking lot to the other, jump up, flip his board, catch it, then slam it down and land on it. Then he'd skate back to the other end of the parking lot.
He wasn't sure how long this went on before he found the girl sitting on the loading dock all by herself watching him. Billy didn't know who she was and tried to ignore her, but that only lasted for a couple of passes before something familiar about her struck him.
He kicked up his board one last time, landed and then found himself gliding across the parking lot towards the girl.
It wasn't until he got closer and saw the dark skin and the scars across her face that made the “X” that he spoke. “Your name is Chimera.”
“It is.”
“You were at the house that Mudder brought me too when I was a boy. He'd rescued me from vampires.”
“That is true.”
Billy stopped his roll with his foot and kicked his board up into his hand. She sat on the loading dock with her legs hanging over the side. She wore jeans, biker boots, and a purple sweater. There was a leather coat sitting on the dock to her left with a pair of riding gloves sticking out of the pocket.
“So, you're part of the Lucifer's Circus gang now?” Billy looked up to her; she was a beautiful girl, with captivating brown eyes, and short curly hair. Her skin was a rich cocoa and flawless, save for the remnants of the diagonal scars that had been cut across her face.
She'd had the same scars when Billy had met her as a ten-year-old girl. He thought back to their short meeting. She had been just as beautiful then, even though the scars, much like his, had been much more pronounced when she was a girl.
“I've been riding with Mudder Kelroy since I finished school and my mama passed.”
Billy remembered Chimera's mother too; her name had been Lee Anna and she hadn't liked her daughter talking to Billy Purgatory. Now that Billy thought about it, most mothers hadn't liked their daughters talking to him.
“Sorry about your mom.” Billy felt it was only fitting, considering what he was going through with his Pop.
“Mama had a hard life, and I expect she was ready to move on. She's in a better place now, so no need to be sorry.”
Billy spun his skateboard wheel with his thumb. He wasn't sure he had ever believed in a better place. Well, he had one time… and that had broken the universe.
He decided not to dwell. “Maybe I should join up with your gang.”
Chimera shook her head. “Oh no. Mudder Kelroy has surely told you what you're supposed to be doing, and it isn't riding anywhere near us.”
“Yeah, I know. I'm not really cut out for gangs.”
“Oh, I remember. You're a lone wolf. That's what you told me when we were kids.”
Billy smiled. “You have remembered truth.”
“Not so much of a lone wolf though now, are you?”
He considered that she must be talking about Anastasia.
“We're just making it through the territory together right now.”
She nodded and smiled. “Sure, because vampires and skateboarders make those kind of arrangements a lot.”
“You can tell she's a vampire, huh?”
“How could you not? Nose in the air like she is, and thinking she's the best looking thing the world ever had to contend with.”
Billy looked up to the clouds and couldn't help but smile. “Yeah, okay — that's pretty accurate.”
“I like her style, though. You did good.”
“We're not together like that.”
“Not one person here believes that lie, most especially you or her.”
Billy ran his fingers through his hair and considered going back to his skate-pacing. “Mudder send you out here to try and convi
nce me to follow his advice about running and hiding?”
“None of us believe you're really gonna do any of that either. Nobody sent me out here — I came out to get a look at you and see what all the fuss was really about.”
“There's fuss?”
Chimera raised her legs and crossed them on the dock and adjusted her seat against the concrete. “You killed one of them?”
“Yeah, they called him Broom. If you want to get all technical, I killed him twice. The second time was in an alternative reality so…”
“I think the once over here is all you gotta worry about.”
“Probably.”
“The gods sure do know how to pick ‘em.”
“Nobody ever picked me for anything. I was the kid who the team had to take in dodgeball cause I was the only one left. I never got that either, I used to nail kids right in the face.”
“Her name is Moon. You have pissed her off something terrible, and she's not gonna stop until you're dead. She's opened up everything you see around you to collateral damage just to make that happen.”
Billy crossed his arms. “I'm not gonna apologize to her.”
“Even if you were, it's way too late for that.”
“You know about them? The Satanic Five?”
“I know that's a silly name that's meant to scare superstitious folks.”
“That's what that Russian said.”
“They're much more complicated than some cult that's chasing your RV down a country road.”
“So, tell me, what do they want? How do I stop them from getting it?”
Chimera pointed at his heart. “You keep doing what you're doing and you stay alive.”
“It's got to be harder than that.”
“Billy, it's important that you leave this place behind. Not just this clinic, but all of this. Everything that you've ever come running back to, thinking you were coming home. You gotta go out and forge new roads.”
“I've been all over the world, and then some, already…”
“Your answers aren't here. Especially now. In a few minutes, Mudder and I are gonna ride out of here with the gang and we're going looking for help. It's not going to be an easy ride, and you're gonna have to try and be patient while we find what we're looking for.”
“Who are you going to find that's gonna help me? How are we supposed to fight against them and everything they're coming at me with to make me end up dead?”
Chimera hummed a tune to herself as she laid her jacket across her lap. “Do you know about the blues, Billy Purgatory?”
“I'm starting to feel like I do.”
“My grandpop was a blues man, his name was Walter Hatchett. They called him Hoof Scratch.”
“Is he gonna help us?”
“He's been dead for a long time, but he has already helped us. Did you know that my grandpop and yours were friends?”
Billy shook his head. “Pop never really talked about Grandpa.”
“Your paw-paw was a baseball player, they called him Catfish Purgatory.”
“Catfish?”
“My grandpop was in a dark place, and he just couldn't dig himself out of the hole he'd fallen into. He went one night to a place where three roads crossed.”
Billy imagined that in his head — and it took some doing. “Yeah, okay…”
“He was gonna summon him up some trouble, and he did. If it wasn't for your paw-paw Catfish coming to help him, old Hoof Scratch would'a got swallowed up that night.”
“It wasn't a time traveling zombie, was it?”
“My grandpop saw things men ain't supposed to see, and he wrote it all down in the only way he knew how to write stuff down.”
Billy's eyes lit up. “Songs.”
Chimera nodded. “He saw the kinda things that those beings that call themselves the Satanic Five know about. He taught my momma, and then she taught me — that for everything that is, there's an opposite to it.”
“So you're going to find the opposite of what they are?”
“We're gonna find some of them; one is gonna come looking for you.” Chimera reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out her gloves, then dug deeper and pulled out a cassette tape.
She handed it to Billy, and as he stared at it she rose from where she had been sitting.
“Did you just give me a mix tape?”
“Be on the lookout for him. He's coming to find you.” Chimera headed towards the door to the clinic as Billy looked at the tape. It didn't have writing on it, there were symbols — five all together. They weren't the ones the Satanic Five used.
“Hey, with all the weird stuff that's looking for me, how am I supposed to know this guy when he finds me?”
Chimera was already pushing into the clinic. “Billy Purgatory, are you trying to tell me that you won't recognize the Devil Bird when he comes to roost?”
Billy looked back at the tape as she vanished through the door.
“That stupid chicken is real?”
II.
Billy stood on the loading dock as Lucifer's Circus mounted their bikes. Mudder Kelroy lit a match off his gas tank and raised the tiny torch to a big cigar. The line of bikes cranked to life and made enough racket to wake the gods — the few that seemed to be left, anyway.
Mudder pointed his fist at Billy, then two fingers extended from that fist. Billy nodded to him. The biker's hand went up and made a big circle in the night air. Bikes rolled back, and Billy saw Chimera mouth the words to him before they rode on.
“Lone wolf.”
Billy patted the pocket of his dark camo pants; the tape of the blues was safely stowed within. He turned to find Anastasia staring at him.
“What?”
“I'll meet you at the truck in an hour.”
Billy looked over her to the back entryway of the VA clinic. “I want to get out of here ASAP. I thought you did too.”
“I have to hunt.”
Billy jumped off the loading dock and landed in the parking lot. “I thought you just…”
“That was three days ago.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“I just think we need to make tracks. I'm also not into the idea of us splitting up right now. Didn't you hear what Mudder said?”
“I won't be long.”
Billy started to walk away and then spun around. “Will you just come with me?”
“I'm no good to either of us weak.”
“Anastasia.” He could see her face getting irritated. Lately he had done what it took to keep the peace, but right now he didn't care.
“I can only hold it back for so long.”
“Come with me now.” He motioned to her with his hand. “We'll get away from here and find somewhere you can do your thing.”
“I can do my thing just fine on my own, without your counsel or help.”
“Look, things have changed big time. We need to talk about this and find a way to deal with it.”
“Deal with it?” Oh yeah, she was getting mad. It probably hadn't been the best idea to have the discussion at that moment, but that had never stopped him before.
“You know what I mean.” He motioned for her again.
“No, I don't know what you mean. My little vampire problem? Is that what you mean?”
“I didn't say that. That's not what I meant. Come on and we'll figure it out.”
“Oh, we're going to talk about it now?”
“We should have talked about it long before now, but yeah.”
She jumped from the loading dock, and Billy just knew that she was going to attack him. When he looked up from the defensive maneuver he pulled, she had landed several feet in front of him and was moving away with her arms crossed.
He hated it when she crossed her arms.
Billy followed her towards the woods and remained quiet for once. The sound of motorcycles had gone quiet as well, and Billy Purgatory decided not to look back at the building his Pop would never leave.
Not until Pop f
inally set his mind to becoming what Billy was struggling with the decision to become — a ghost.
~35~
“I MEAN, THE HIGH SCHOOL I WENT TO, THEY ASKED A KID TO PROVE THE LAW OF GRAVITY — HE THREW THE TEACHER OUT THE WINDOW!”
— RODNEY DANGERFIELD, BACK TO SCHOOL
SHE DIDN'T TALK TO HIM THE WHOLE WAY up the coast and just looked out the window. Billy had decided to switch over to the reserve fuel tank on the truck instead of stopping for gas along the way. He had kept refueling the main tank as they had driven across the U.S., keeping the spare tank on the massive dually truck filled in case there was an emergency. On that late night, and into early morning drive, the emergency was finally clear to Billy — he couldn't take the chance of stopping anywhere and letting anyone see him.
The stereo of the truck was too modern to have a cassette tape player, so he let Anastasia have her silence and her staring out the window. He kept the pedal pressed down, but even that gave him no comfort. He found himself to be paranoid, straining to keep his eyes open for anything that looked off. Driving wasn't as much fun when you were being cautious to not break the speed limit.
He got off the highway as quickly as he could and found a scenic route that ran through farm country. They were the only vehicle on the road for hours, and even that kept Billy edgy.
The good news was that the big truck sort of blended in with what was expected on the road; the bad news was that it still had California plates on it, and that might raise an eyebrow from some local speed-trap attendant who thought it might be fun to harass someone from out of state.
Nobody is more fun to harass than some freak from California.
Daylight was close. He knew that he needed to find somewhere to land before the sun burned the sky blue and the locals started up on their morning coffee and donut runs.
Coffee and donuts both sounded good to Billy. He hadn't eaten anything since the clinic vending machine, and that was turning out to be a long time ago.
Plus, there was Anastasia's currently unspoken hunger.
The school was one of those rural jobs that was just far enough away from everything else. It had been placed more for easy access to miles of family farms than to proximity to town square central. It had a temporary fence around it, and the sign on the back construction gate alerted anyone who wanted to read that the structure had been temporarily closed due to pending asbestos removal.
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 33