by Ellen Datlow
He dropped barely a foot or so, but the rope choked him and his feet kicked against the boards. In reflex, he grabbed the rope, tried to haul himself up; but he was being lowered and could make no progress. Overhead, the uglies were framed by the window, one embracing a still-struggling Grace, whose face was pressed into its chest. The tallest was paying out the rope. Shellane’s eyes darkened and he felt a tremendous heat inside his skull. His right foot bumped against the half-curled hand and then he was inside it, waist-deep in its loose grip. He caught at its upper edge, levering himself up with his elbows, refusing to be lowered farther. The surface of the uppermost finger was crusted with brownish stains. He puzzled over them, wondering what they might be. Then that question was answered as the hand began to close and he understood that some unfortunate enough to happen onto the house while they were alive had chosen to be crushed rather than hanged. Gasping, his throat constricted, he looked up to Grace, dimly moved to find her. The figures above appeared to be joined in a wobbling dance, pushing each another to gain a better view, communicating in grunts and growls. Then the smallest of the four, the shrillest, flung herself at the tallest, clawing at its eyes, and the rope came uncoiling down toward Shellane. He released his grip, allowed himself to fall, not so much because he recognized that he’d live if he did, more a sympathetic reaction to the rope’s fall. His head struck the first joint of the fist’s little finger and he dropped the last few feet, landing on his back with a jolting impact.
He did not black out and the recognition that he was free penetrated the clutter of his thoughts. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his ribs, he pushed up to a standing position and began a limping retreat. Grace screamed at him to run and he threw himself forward with his shoulders, dragging his left leg, moving blindly through the fog. He knew she must still be struggling with the uglies or else they would be on him—his pace was much too slow to outrun them—and this spurred him to limp faster. There was nothing he could do for her. The pragmatic view, however, did not sit well with him. Every step he took sparked a sense of shame and inadequacy. Wincing whenever he inadvertently planted his left foot, feeling the inception of a pain more difficult to ease than the one that crippled him, he kept on going until, after a short while, he heard wind sighing in the spruce, and water lightly slapping the shore, and knew that he was safe, an infinity removed from certain lesser demons and their rickety black hell, but utterly alone.
ONCE HE HAD bandaged his wounds, believing that Grace would not return, that she was lodged in a cell filled with burning light or enduring some crueler punishment, Shellane spent the remainder of the night hoping he was wrong. Whatever pain she was experiencing, he was to blame—he had insinuated himself into a situation that he had completely misjudged, and as a result, he had caused her already bleak outlook to worsen. Staying at the house would have served no purpose, yet he felt he had breached a bond implicit in the relationship, and he castigated himself for having abandoned her. The hours stretched and he felt once again how weak and attenuated his attachment to life had become. Without Grace, without the renewal of passion she had inspired, he could not conceive of going on as before, preparing a new identity, a new hiding place. What could any place offer other than the fundamentals of survival? And what good were they without a reason to survive? He sat at the table, breeding a dull fog of thought that was illuminated now and again by fits of memory. Her face, her laugh, her moods. Yet memory did not brighten him. All the commonplace instances that shone so extraordinarily bright in his mind were grayed with doubt. He knew almost nothing about her, and he suspected that if he were capable of analysis, he might discover that the things he knew were dross, not gold, that she was not at all extraordinary. She had simply fit a shape in his brain, perfect in some imponderable way. Every part of his body labored—heart slogging, lungs heaving. It seemed that something had been ripped out of him, some scrap of spirit necessary for existence.
To distract himself from grief, he wrote lists. Long lists this time, comprised chiefly of supposition. His knowledge of the house was limited, but he was certain about the doors—the uglies were able, thanks to their strength, to program their destinations. Though it was pointless, he couldn’t keep from speculating on the nature of the place and the apparent infinity of locations to which it seemed connected. It was hard to accept that the afterlife possessed an instrumentality. Back in the days when he was a believer, his notion of heaven had been a bland, diffuse cloud country, and his vision of hell was informed by comic books. Spindly crags and bleak promontories atop which the greater demons perched, peering into the fires where their minions oversaw a barbecue of souls. The house was at odds with both conceptions, but he had no choice except to believe that beyond death lay a limitless and intricate plenum whose character was infinitely various, heavens and hells and everything in between. It was similar to the Tibetan view—souls attracted to destinations that accorded with what they had cherished in life, be it virtuous or injurious. Unlikely, though, that Tibetan cosmology contained anything comparable to the black house.
If he were trapped in the house, he thought, he’d first observe the ways in which the uglies manipulated the ridged seams beside the doors and try to devise a mechanism that would allow him to exert more force when pushing. It was a simple enough mechanical problem. And of course he would study the uglies’ behavior, their habits. He wondered why they had been afraid of him. They had presumed him to be dead and had lost their fear after noticing he was alive, mortally vulnerable. As with everyone else he had met in the house, it took them a while to notice his vitality. But that didn’t explain what they were afraid of. Perhaps they saw things people did not. Different wavelengths. Auras. Souls. Somehow he posed a threat. Because he had manipulated the doors? It was the most likely reason. If he were dead and in the house, they’d make his life—his afterlife—hell. Keep him penned up or too busy to interfere. At least they would try. Primitive as they were, they’d screw it up sooner or later and give him an opportunity. But he would have to endure a great deal of pain before such an opportunity arose.
He understood then that he was not thinking in the abstract; he was contemplating his own death, using the same methodical approach that he would use in developing a plan for a robbery. The idea that this even occurred to him was not shocking. He made a perfect candidate for the house. He no longer cared about life, and like Grace, who’d had Broillard to finish her off, his own killers were at hand. They would eventually track him down. All he had to do was wait. And what would he be giving up? Paranoia and solitude, hookers and barflies, no plans for the future except those of escape. A life without significant challenge, an emptiness that would be far emptier without Grace. He tried to weaken this argument with self-doubt. His belief that he could learn to manipulate the doors … Wouldn’t death make of him, as it had of Grace and the others, a befuddled, energyless soul incapable of functioning? Then he recalled how he and Grace had interacted in the house. She had been angry, afraid, but full of vitality. Of life. The two of them together might form a battery that would generate sufficient strength to manage an escape. What if there were more than two? He had seen—what?—fifty or sixty people in the house, and there must be many more. He and Grace might infect the rest with their energy. They might be able to overpower the uglies.
He straightened in his chair and made a scoffing noise, dismayed that he could entertain these fantasies—a postmortem revolution, the democratic overthrow of minor-league demons. Next he’d be accepting Jesus as his personal savior. He went into the bedroom and pulled his suitcases from beneath the bed. Get out of here now. That was the only reasonable agenda. He began to pack, though not in his usual painstaking style. Balling up shirts, stuffing them in. But gradually his pace slowed. The sheets smelled of her. She was real. Nothing could change that. She was real, the house was real, and however frail the foundation supporting his guesswork, everything he had seen and done was real. He had followed a trail of intuitive decisions and t
hey had led him here, to Grace, to this moment and to these speculations, which his instinct judged sound, and which, though the logic of the world prevailed against him, he was unable to refute.
Leaving his bags open, he returned to the front room. Trees and shrubs and shoreline were melting up from the half-dark, and as they sharpened, shadowy branches evolving into distinct sprays of needles, the margin of the lake defining itself in precise gray curves, the things of the world came to seem increasingly imprecise to Shellane. Their precision a poor reflection of the simpler, albeit more daunting, order he had detected in the house. As if death were a refinement of life. He settled back into his chair. Noon approached. Soon a blue Cadillac would come grumbling along the lake road. Soon he would cook breakfast, take a shower, make a plan, creating a structure that had no other purpose than to repeat itself. He saw himself as he had once been. Rock-and-roll days. Girlfriend sobbing in a corner of that dingy, brain-damaged apartment in Medford. Him yelling, shouting, because he had no self-justification that could be spoken in a quiet tone or a reasonable voice. The quick drug hit of a score, adrenaline rushes and gleefully desperate escapes, and afterward sitting in a nondescript bar with nondescript men, laughing madly over drink at the skill, guts, and brains required to risk everything for short money in the service of greater men who watched them like spiders watching trained flies and smiled at their ignorance. Walking like a ghost through Detroit. Brushing past the world, touching it just enough to envy its unreal brilliance. Was that it? A life like so many bits of rusty tin threaded onto a gray string? These days with Grace canceled out every moment of that heatless past. He put his hand on the telephone, let it rest there for several minutes before lifting the receiver and dialing, not because he was hesitant, but rather stalled, lost in a fugue from which he emerged diminished and uncaring.
A man’s voice spoke in his ear. “Yeah, what?”
“You recording this?” Shellane asked.
A pause. “Who’s asking?”
“If you’re not recording, start the tape. I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”
Another pause. “You’re on the tape, pal. Go for it.”
“This is …” Shellane had a thought. A wicked thought, another addition to his Book of Sin. But damned once, damned twice … What did it matter?
“You still there?”
“My name is Avery Broillard,” Shellane said. “I work at the Gas ’n Guzzle in Champion, Michigan. In the Upper Peninsula, about an hour’s drive west of Marquette.”
“No shit? How’s the weather up there?”
“I can tell you how to find Roy Shellane.”
Silence, and then the man said, “That would be very helpful, Avery. Why don’tcha go ahead and tell me?”
“It’s tricky … the directions. I’ll have to show you. I work until seven tonight. Can you have somebody up here by seven?”
“Oh, yeah. We can handle that. But, Avery … whoever the fuck you are. If this is bullshit, I’m gonna be upset with you.”
“Just have somebody here by seven.”
After hanging up, he had a moment’s panic—a twinge of fear, an urge toward flight; but it found no purchase in his thoughts. He sat a while longer, then set about making breakfast. Fried eggs and ham, toast, and his last wedge of apple pie.
SHORTLY AFTER FIVE o’clock that afternoon, a dark-green Datsun parked about a hundred feet off along the access road. Shellane pictured Gerbasi crammed into the front seat—the rental-car options in Marquette must not have been to his liking. He considered going out to meet them, but though he was eager to be done with it, he was so enervated, worn down by depression, feelings of loss and anxiety, his eagerness did not rise to the level of action. At a quarter to seven, the doors of the Datsun opened and two shadows moved toward the cabin, one much bulkier than the other. They vanished behind trees, then reappeared larger, at a different angle to the cabin, like ghosts playing interdimensional tag. Shellane could have picked them off, no problem. He was in an odd mood. So lighthearted that he was tempted to hunt up the nine millimeter and destroy the men who were intending to do what he wished, just as a prank on himself; but he couldn’t recall where he had put the gun. He heard whispers outside. Probably arguing over whether to shoot through the window. Gerbasi wouldn’t go for it. He enjoyed the laying on of hands. That was his kink. The fat bag of poison wanted you to commune with him before he did the deed. Over thirty years of murdering people who had not necessarily required it, and life had been kind to him, except socially. For some years now, he had been in love with a woman who shared a house with a guy who claimed to be a gay political refugee from Cuba, a story that scored him few points in the neighborhood but lent his bond with the woman an innocence that placated Gerbasi, who remained oblivious to the fact that he was being cheated on in plain view. It was amazing, Shellane thought, what there was to know about people.
The door blew inward and Gerbasi’s associate, an ex-pug, a light-heavy who had obviously taken a pounding during his days in the ring, ridges of scar tissue over his eyes, posed TV cop-style with his shiny gun and grunted something that Shellane did not catch but took for an admonition. Then Gerbasi hove into view. Spider veins were thick as jail tattoos on his jowls, and the bags beneath his eyes appeared to have been dipped in grape juice. His breathing was wet and wheezy, and his muted-plaid suit had the lumpish aspect of bad upholstery. The lamplight plated his scalp with an orange shine. He waddled three steps into the room and said, “This don’t seem like you, Roy. Just sitting here waiting for it.”
Shellane, his flame turned low, had no reply.
Gerbasi snapped at his helper, telling him to close the door. “What’s going on with you?” he asked Shellane.
“I surrender,” said Shellane.
“The guy Broillard, he claims he didn’t call us.” Gerbasi’s eyes, heavy-lidded, big and brown like calfs’ eyes, ranged the tabletop. “Know anything about that?”
“Broillard? The Gas ’n Guzzle guy? He called you about me?”
Gerbasi’s stogie-sized forefinger prodded Shellane’s laptop. “Somebody called. Broillard says it wasn’t him.”
“Maybe he had a change of heart,” suggested Shellane.
“Maybe you set his ass up.” Gerbasi gave him a doleful look.
“You didn’t hurt him, did you?” Shellane failed to keep the amusement from his voice.
The light-heavy chuckled doltishly. “He ain’t hurting no more.”
“I figure you set him up,” Gerbasi said. “But why would ya do that and still be hanging around here?”
“Don’t think about it, Marty. You’ll break your brain.”
“Maybe he’s got cancer,” offered the light-heavy.
“Worse,” said Shellane.
“What’s worse than cancer?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Gerbasi said to the light-heavy; he removed a long-barreled 22. from his shoulder holster.
“Truth,” Shellane said.
“Y’know, you look way too satisfied for a man’s gonna be wearing his brains in a coupla minutes,” Gerbasi said. “You waiting for rescue, Roy? That it?”
“Just do your business.”
“Guy’s in a hurry,” said the light-heavy. “Never seen one be in a hurry.”
“Who cut your face?” Gerbasi asked Shellane.
“Do it, you fat fuck! I’ve got places I need to get to.”
“Hear that shit?” said the light-heavy. “Motherfucker’s crazy.”
“Nah, he’s got an angle. Man’s always got an angle. Don’tcha, Roy?”
Shellane smiled. “I live in certain hope of the Resurrection.”
Gerbasi gave his head a dubious shake. “Know what I useta say about you? I’d say Roy Shellane runs the best goddamn crews of anybody in the business, but he’s too fucking smart for his own good. One of these days he’s gonna outsmart himself.” He seemed to be expecting a response; when none came, he said, “I think maybe that day’s come.”
A boug
h ticked the side of the cabin; the light-heavy twitched toward the door. Shellane understood why Gerbasi enjoyed playing these scenes—he wanted the fear to grow strong so he could smell it. But though Shellane was not free of fear, it was weak in him, and he thought that he must be proving a profound disappointment.
“I get the feeling you think you’re holding a great stud hand, but you don’t know you’re sitting at the blackjack table,” Gerbasi said.
The light-heavy looked confused.
Shellane rested his head in his hands. “Do I have to fucking beg you to shoot?”
“Hey.” The light-heavy came up beside Gerbasi. “Maybe he’s wearing a wire.”
“He was, they’d be here already, dumbass! But something ain’t kosher.” Gerbasi let the gun dangle at his side. “Tell me what’s going on, Roy, or I’m gonna hafta give ya some pain.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do. You understand?”
“No, explain it to me.”
“You had a soul, I wouldn’t need to explain.”
“I told ya … the guy’s crazy;’ said the light-heavy.
“You don’t shut your goddamn mouth, swear to Christ I’m gonna put one in ya,” Gerbasi said.
“Jeez! Fine. Fuck … whatever.”
Gerbasi sucked at his teeth, studied Shellane, rocking slightly on his heels. “I think I got it,” he said to the light-heavy. “Man’s tired of living. That’s all it is. Right, Roy?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Remember Bobby Sheehan? Man looks at me and says, ‘Fuck you, Marty.’ Not like he was pissed off. Just weary. Just fed up with it all. I asked, man, I said, ‘Fuck’s wrong with you, Bobby? This how you wanna go out? Like a fucking sick dog?’ And he says, ‘A sick dog’s got it all over me. A sick dog don’t know what’s making it sick.’” Gerbasi nodded. “It’s kinda like that, ain’t it?”