The Damnation Game

by Clive Barker

  "You're a good man, Strauss." Whitehead's words rose from the shadowed chair like a prophet's from a cleft rock. Though he couldn't see the potentate's face, Marty knew he was smiling.

  42

  Despite her years on the sunshine island, Carys had a healthy sense of reality. Or had, until they took her to that cold, bare house on Caliban Street. There, nothing was certain anymore. It was Mamoulian's doing. That, perhaps, was the only thing that was certain. Houses weren't haunted, only human minds. Whatever moved in the air there, or flitted along the bare boards with the dust balls and the cockroaches, whatever scintillated, like light on water, at the corners of her eyes, it was all of Mamoulian's manufacture.

  For three days after her arrival at the new house she had refused even to speak to her host or captor, whichever he was. She couldn't recall why she'd come, but she knew he'd conned her into it-his mind breathing at her neck-and she'd resented his manipulations. Breer, the fat one, had brought her food, and, on the second day, dope too, but she wouldn't eat or say a word. The room they'd locked her in was quite comfortable. She had books, and a television too, but the atmosphere was too unstable for her to be at ease. She couldn't read, nor could she watch the inanities on the box. Sometimes she found it difficult to remember her own name; it was as if his constant proximity was wiping her clean. Perhaps he could do that. After all, he'd got into her head, hadn't he? Surreptitiously wormed his way into her psyche God knows how many times. He'd been in her, in her for Christ's sake, and she'd never known.

  "Don't be frightened."

  It was three A.M. on the fourth day, and another sleepless night. He had come into her room so silently she'd looked down to see if his feet were making contact with the floor.

  "I hate this place," she informed him.

  "Would you like to explore, rather than being locked up in here?"

  "It's haunted," she said, expecting him to laugh at her. He didn't, however. So she went on. "Are you the ghost?"

  "What I am is a mystery," he replied, "even to myself." His voice was softened by introspection. "But I'm no ghost. You may be certain of that. Don't fear me, Carys. Anything you feel, I share, in some measure."

  She remembered acutely this man's revulsion at the sex act. What a pale, sickly thing he was, for all his powers. She couldn't bring herself to hate him, though she had reason enough.

  "I don't like to be used," she said.

  "I did you no harm. I do you no harm now, do I?"

  "I want to see Marty."

  Mamoulian had started to try to clench his mutilated hand. "I'm afraid that's not possible," he said. The scar tissue of his hand, pulled tight, shone, but the mishealed anatomy wouldn't give.

  "Why not? Why won't you let me see him?"

  "You'll have everything you need. Ample supplies of food; of heroin."

  It suddenly crossed her mind that Marty might be on the European's execution list. Might, in fact, already be dead.

  "Please don't harm him," she said.

  "Thieves come and thieves go," he replied. "I can't be responsible for what happens to him."

  "I'll never forgive you," she said.

  "Yes you will," he replied, his voice so soft now it was practically illusory. "I'm your protector now, Carys. Had I been allowed, I would have nurtured you from childhood, and you would have been spared the humiliations he's made you suffer. But it's too late. All I can do is shelter you from further corruption."

  He gave up trying to make a fist. She saw how the wounded hand disgusted him. He would cut it off if he could, she thought; it's not just sex he loathes, it's flesh.

  "No more," he said, apropos of the hand, or debate, or nothing at all.

  When he left her to sleep, he didn't lock the door behind him.

  The next day, she began her exploration of the house. There was nothing very remarkable about the place; it was simply a large, empty, three-story house. In the street beyond the dirty windows ordinary people passed by, too locked in their heads even to glance around. Though her first instinct was to knock on the glass, to mouth some appeal to them, the urge was easily conquered by reason. If she slipped away what would she be escaping from, or to? She had safety here, of a kind, and drugs. Though at first she resisted them, they were too attractive to flush away down the toilet. And after a few days of the pills, she gave in to the heroin too. It came in steady supply: never too much, never too little, and always good stuff.

  Only Breer, the fat one, upset her. He would come, some days, and watch her, his eyes sloppy in his head like partially poached eggs. She told Mamoulian about him, and the next day he didn't linger; just brought the pills and hurried away. And the days flowed into one another; and sometimes she didn't remember where she was or how she'd got here; sometimes she remembered her name, sometimes not. Once, maybe twice, she tried to think her way to Marty, but he was too far from her. Either that, or the house subdued her powers. Whichever, her thoughts lost their way a few miles from Caliban Street, and she returned there sweating and afraid.

  She had been in the house almost a week when things took a turn for the worse.

  "I'd like you to do something for me," the European said.

  "What?"

  "I'd like you to find Mr. Toy. You do remember Mr. Toy?"

  Of course she remembered. Not well, but she remembered. His broken nose, those cautious eyes that had always looked at her so sadly.

  "Do you think you could locate him?"

  "I don't know how to."

  "Let your mind go to him. You know the way, Carys."

  "Why can't you do it?"

  "Because he'll be expecting me. He'll have defenses, and I'm too tired to fight with him at the moment."

  "Is he afraid of you?"

  "Probably."

  "Why?"

  "You were a babe in arms when Mr. Toy and I last met. He and I parted as enemies; he presumes we are still enemies..."

  "You're going to harm him," she said.

  "That's my business, Carys."

  She stood, sliding up the wall against which she'd been slumped.

  "I don't think I want to find him for you."

  "Aren't we friends?"

  "No," she said. "No. Never."

  "Come now."

  He stepped toward her. The broken hand touched her: the contact was feather-light.

  "I think you are a ghost," she said.

  She left him standing in the corridor, and went up to the bathroom to think this through, locking the door behind her. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that he'd harm Toy if she led him to the man.

  "Carys," he said quietly. He was outside the bathroom door. His proximity made her scalp creep.

  "You can't make me," she said.

  "Don't tempt me."

  Suddenly the European's face loomed in her head. He spoke again: "I knew you before you could walk, Carys. I've held you in my arms, often. You've sucked on my thumb." He was speaking with his lips close to the door; his low voice reverberated in the wood she had her back against.

  "It's no fault of yours or mine that we were parted. Believe me, I'm glad you carry your father's gifts, because he never used them. He never once understood the wisdom there was to be found with them. He squandered it all: for fame, for wealth. But you... I could teach you, Carys. Such things."

  The voice was so seductive it seemed to reach through the door and enfold her, the way his arms had, so many years ago. She was suddenly minute in his grasp; he cooed at her, made foolish faces to bring a cherubic smile to bloom.

  "Just find Toy for me. Is it so much to ask for all my favors to you?"

  She found herself rocking with the rhythm of his cradling.

  "Toy never loved you," he was saying, "nobody has ever loved you."

  That was a lie: and a tactical error. The words were cold water on her sleepy face. She was loved! Marty loved her. The runner; her runner.

  Mamoulian sensed his miscalculation.

  "Don't defy me," he said; the cooing had
gone from his voice.

  "Go to Hell," she replied.

  "As you wish..."

  There was a falling note in his words, as though the issue was closed and done with. He didn't leave his station by the door, however. She felt him close. Was he waiting for her to tire, and come out? she wondered. Persuasion by physical violence wasn't his style, surely; unless he was going to use Breer. She hardened herself against the possibility. She'd claw his watery eyes out.

  Minutes passed, and she was sure the European was still outside though she could hear neither movement or breath.

  And then, the pipes began to rumble. Somewhere in the system, a tide was moving. The sink made a sucking sound, the water in the toilet bowl splashed, the toilet lid flapped open and slammed closed again as a gust of fetid air was discharged from below. This was his doing somehow, though it seemed a vacuous exercise. The toilet farted again: the smell was noxious.

  "What's happening?" she asked under her breath.

  A gruel of filth had started to seep over the lip of the toilet and dribble onto the floor. Wormy shapes moved in it. She shut her eyes. This was a fabrication, conjured up by the European to subdue her mutiny: she would ignore it. But even with canceled sight the illusion persisted. The water splashed more loudly as the flood rose, and in the stream she heard wet heavy things flopping onto the bathroom floor.

  "Well?" said Mamoulian.

  She cursed the illusions and their charmer in one vitriolic breath.

  Something skittered across her bare foot. She was damned if she was going to open her eyes and give him another sense to assault, but curiosity forced them open.

  The dribbles from the toilet had become a stream, as if the sewers had backed up and were discharging their contents at her feet. Not simply excrement and water; the soup of hot dirt had bred monsters. Creatures that could be found in no sane zoology: things that had been fish once, crabs once; fetuses flushed down clinic drains before their mothers could wake to scream; beasts that fed on excrement whose bodies were a pun on what they devoured. Everywhere in the silt forsaken stuff, offal and dregs, raised itself on queasy limbs and flapped and paddled toward her.

  "Make them go away," she said.

  They had no intention of retreat. The scummy tide still edged forward: the fauna the toilet was vomiting up were getting larger.

  "Find Toy," the voice on the other side of the door bargained. Her sweaty hands slid on the handle, but the door refused to open. There was no hint of a reprieve.

  "Let me out."

  "Just say yes."

  She flattened herself against the door. The toilet lid flew open in the strongest gust yet, and this time stayed open. The flood thickened and the pipes creaked as something that was almost too large for them began to force its way toward the light. She heard its claws rake the sides of the pipes, she heard the chatter of its teeth.

  "Say yes."

  "No."

  A glistening arm was thrown up from the belching bowl, and flailed around until its digits fixed on the sink. Then it began to haul itself up, its water-rotted bones rubbery.

  "Please!" she screamed.

  "Just say yes."

  "Yes! Yes! Anything! Yes!"

  As she spat out the words the handle of the door moved. She turned her back on the emerging horror and put her weight down on the handle at the same time as her other hand fumbled with the key. Behind her, she heard the sound of a body contorting itself to fetch itself free. She turned the key the wrong way, and then the right. Muck splashed on her shin. It was almost at her heels. As she opened the door sodden fingers snatched at her ankle, but she threw herself out of the bathroom before it could catch her, and onto the landing, slamming the door behind her.

  Mamoulian, his victory won, had gone.

  After that, she couldn't bring herself to go back into the bathroom. At her request the Razor-Eater supplied a bucket for her to use, which he brought and took away again with reverence.

  The European never spoke of the incident again. There was no need. That night she did as he had asked her. She opened up her head and went to look for Bill Toy and, within a matter of minutes, she found him. So, soon after, did the Last European.

  43

  Not since the halcyon days of his big wins at the casinos had Marty possessed so much money as he did now. Two thousand pounds was no fortune to Whitehead, but it raised Marty to blind heights. Perhaps the old man's story about Carys had been a lie. If so, he'd wheedle the truth out of him in time. Slowee, slowee, catchee monkey, as Feaver used to say. What would Feaver say to see Marty now, with money lapping at his feet?

  He left the car near Euston, and caught a cab to the Strand to cash the check. Then he went in search of a good evening suit. Whitehead had suggested an outfitter off Regent Street. The fitters treated him with some brusqueness at first, but once he showed them the color of his money the tune changed to sycophancy. Curbing his smiles, Marty played the fastidious buyer; they fawned and fussed; he let them. Only after three-quarters of an hour of their fey attentions did he alight on something he liked: a conservative choice, but immaculately styled. The suit, and the accompanying wardrobe-shoes, shirts, a selection of ties-bit more deeply into the cash than he'd anticipated, but he let it go, like water, through his fingers. The suit, and one set of accoutrements, he took with him. The rest he had sent to the Sanctuary.

  It was lunchtime when he emerged, and he wandered around looking for somewhere to eat. There'd been a Chinese restaurant on Gerard Street that he and Charmaine had frequented whenever funds allowed: he returned there now. Though its facade had been modernized to accommodate a large neon sign, the interior was much the same; the food as good as he remembered. He sat in splendid isolation and ate and drank his way through the menu, happy to play the rich man to the hilt. He ordered half a dozen cigars after the meal, downed several brandies and tipped like a millionaire. Papa would be proud of me, he thought. When he was full, drunk and satisfied, he headed out into the balmy afternoon. It was time he followed the rest of Whitehead's instructions.

  He made his way through Soho, wandering for a few minutes until he found a betting office. As he entered the smoky interior, guilt assailed him, but he told his spoilsport conscience to go hang. He was obeying orders in coming here.

  There were races at Newmarket, Kempton Park and Doncaster-each name evoked some bittersweet association-and he bet freely on every one on the board. Soon the old enthusiasm had killed the last smidgen of guilt. It was like living, this game, but it tasted stronger. It dramatized, with its promised gains, its too-easy losses, the sense he had had as a child of what adult life must be like. Of how, once one grew out of boredom and into the secret, bearded, erectile world of manhood, every word would be loaded with risk and promise, every breath taken won in the face of extraordinary odds.

  At first, the money dribbled away from him; he didn't bet heavily, but the frequency of the losses began to dwindle his reserves. Then, three-quarters of an hour into the session things took a turn for the better; horses he plucked from thin air romped home at ridiculous odds, one after the other. In one race he made back what he'd lost in the previous two, and more. The enthusiasm turned to euphoria. This was the very feeling he'd tried so hard to describe to Whitehead-of being in charge of chance.

  Finally, the wins began to bore him. Pocketing his winnings without taking any proper account of them, he left. The money in his jacket was a thick wedge; it ached to be spent. On instinct, he sauntered through the crowds to Oxford Street, selected an expensive shop, and bought a nine-hundred-pound fur coat for Charmaine, then hailed a cab to take it to her. It was a slow journey; the wage-slaves were beginning to make their escape, and the roads were snarled. But his mood forbade irritation.

  He had the taxi drop him off at the corner of the street, because he wanted to walk the length of it. Things had changed since he'd last been here, two and a half months before. Early spring was now early summer. Now, at almost six in the evening, the warmth of t
he day hadn't dissipated; there was growing time in it still. Nor, he thought, was it just the season that had advanced, become riper; he had too.

  He felt real. God in Heaven, that was it. At last he was able to operate in the world again, affect it, shape it.

  Charmaine came to the door looking flustered. She looked more flustered still when Marty stepped in, kissed her, and put the coat box in her arms.

  "Here. I bought you something."

  She frowned. "What is it, Marty?"

  "Take a look. It's for you."

  "No," she said. "I can't."

  The front door was still open. She was ushering him back toward it, or at least attempting to. But he wouldn't go. There was something beneath the look of embarrassment on her face: anger, panic even. She pressed the box back at him, unopened.

  "Please go," she said.

  "It's a surprise," he told her, determined not to be repelled.

  "I don't want any surprises. Just go. Ring me tomorrow."

  He wouldn't take the proffered box, and it fell between them, breaking open. The sumptuous gleam of the coat spilled out; she couldn't help but stoop to pick it up.

  "Oh, Marty..." she whispered.

  As he looked down at her gleaming hair someone appeared at the top of the stairs.

  "What's the problem?"

  Marty looked up. Flynn was standing on the half-landing, dressed only in underwear and socks. He was unshaven. For a few seconds he said nothing, juggling the options. Then the smile, his panacea, swarmed across his face.

  "Marty," he exclaimed, "what's buzzing?"

  Marty looked at Charmaine, who was looking at the floor. She- had the coat in her arms, bundled up like a dead animal.