A phone beside Lana rang. She glanced at Gillian, who was studying her through slitted eyes, and picked up the receiver. She listened for a few moments without speaking, then turned her head again.
“Totally knocked out,” Lana said. She listened a while longer, then put down the receiver and approached the bed. Gillian feigned sound sleep. Lana put a hand on one shoulder and shook her gently. Gillian sensed that wouldn’t be all, and willed herself to be a rock. Lana pinched her earlobe with sharp fingernails. Gillian didn’t bat an eye.
Satisfied, Lana left her, murmured into the phone again, hung up and left the room.
Gillian waited, counted off two minutes. Then she sat up. She was alone. She got out of bed and, shivering, put on her clothes. She was thinking about Peter and the talk they’d had less than twenty-four hours ago. She wept for Peter, but her tears didn’t last long. It wasn’t what he would have wanted.
Her room was on the third floor. Granny Sig had made sure, during their whispered colloquy, that she had full knowledge of how the house was laid out.
The staircase down to the little-used servants’ quarters was cold and poorly lighted; Gillian stumbled once and made some noise, then froze to the railing until she could get her heart out of her mouth.
When she reached the second floor the door, as Granny Sig had promised, was unlocked. A cabinet clock ticked loudly as she walked down the hall to the south wing. It was ten minutes past four in the morning.
But what about dogs? she had said, and Granny Sig said, Childermass hates vicious dogs. He won’t have them in the house.
All the bedroom doors in the south wing of the house were closed. Gillian was momentarily confused. She counted and recounted, then put her ear to one door and heard nothing. Listening at the next door she heard Lana, faintly, talking inside. She waited, poised to run. Nobody came near the door. Gillian continued to listen, but she didn’t hear Lana speak again.
/What you do accidentally, Granny Sig said, you can do on purpose. By willing it.
No, it’s horrible, I can’t!
/Then you will surely end up like Robin. As mad and monstrous as Robin.
(The thing that killed was in the mind)
Gillian turned the knob and eased the door open. She entered the sitting room of Childermass’s suite.
A single lamp was lit. Beyond the lamp, in the bedroom, Childermass sat naked on the side of his bed. Lana, still wearing her yellow headband but nothing else, was down on one knee between his legs, face close to his groin. She nuzzled and nursed. For all the reaction she was getting she might as well not have been there.
Gillian singled out a closet door near the bedroom door. Then, without much interest, she watched the sexual dumbshow as long as it lasted. Very tiring for Lana, but she brought him off.
As soon as Lana was finished, Gillian popped into the closet.
She heard them talking again. Apparently Childermass was an insomniac. He thought a hot bath might help. Gillian heard Lana in the bathroom filling the tub. When she came out Childermass complained that he was hungry. He wanted steak and eggs and a shot of brandy. Lana put her clothes on. From deep inside the closet Gillian watched her leave the bedroom. A few moments later the outside door clicked shut behind Lana.
Cut off the head, Peter had told her, and MORG’s enemies will devour the body.
Gillian opened the closet door and started into the bedroom. Then she doubled back to lock the outside door.
Up to now she had stayed reasonably calm, but the act of locking herself in with Childermass almost snapped her nerve. Her mind seemed to slip out of gear, because the next thing she knew she was standing agape in the bedroom just a few feet from his bath, hearing him sigh and splash lethargically in the deep tub. Childermass’s back was to the door.
/What affects you might be described as rare form of epilepsy.
Oh, God, how can I do this?
I’m like a generator. Turn me on, turn me off.
/Robin could do it, said Granny Sig.
(What I can do you can do, Gillian. You’re my sister)
But what turns the generator on, Granny Sig?
/Hate. Anger. Any powerful emotion.
I can’t. I’m too afraid.
/Yes, fear. Fear will do. Use it.
/Use it, Gillian!
Keeping an eye on the bathroom door, Gillian quietly stripped the coverlet and blankets from the bed. She moved deliberately, but her pulse was hammering incredibly fast, at well over two hundred beats a minute. Her skin was flushed. She pulled the top sheet off and folded it twice.
When the bathroom door opened on a squeaking hinge Childermass trembled all over, startled out of a nodding doze.
“Lana?” he said. “Run some more hot water. And I could use a smoke.”
“Go to hell,” Gillian said.
With a mighty splash he sat up straight, craning his head. He had only a glimpse of Gillian’s furious face before she threw the doubled sheet over him and followed with an arm lock on his stubby body, bearing him down, holding him in the tub with all her strength. His scream was muffled by the sheet and cut off by a gush of water down his throat, although he managed immediately to get his face above the water line. He fought with his one arm, but the wet sheet clung suffocatingly. When he kicked his feet his head slipped far under water and Gillian pressed down again, snorting, her arms wet to the shoulders, her face dripping.
Then his blood began to flow beneath the sheet. Childermass, gasping and sobbing, thrust his head up yet another time before he sank again. Gillian looked away. It was terrible, yet better than her dreams. Here she could close her eyes and not watch the sheet turn red, the water turn vilely dark.
With her eyes tightly closed she remembered the expression on Childermass’s face as he murdered Peter; she wondered what he looked like now. Gillian didn’t really care. Her fury had ebbed almost immediately after she laid hands on him. She had fed it all to Childermass and now there was nothing to do but hang on while his strength flowed out of him.
It might have taken a minute, or an hour.
Cleaning up afterward was difficult; Gillian gagged and almost fainted. She had to strip herself to the waist. Fortunately the ski pants were a dark blue color, and she didn’t mind the few spots on them.
In the bedroom she pulled a blanket around herself and opened windows. The snow had faded to isolated flakes and there was delicate color in the sky that became wave after wave of welcome light across the dumpy snowfields.
She didn’t know what would happen now. There was no use trying to run. Her parents would know where to look for her, and they’d come soon. No one would stand in their way for long.
Lana was outside in the hall, rattling the knob, alarmed by the lock. Gillian was in no hurry to let her in. Something she had to do first.
She left the windows and found a mirror in which to see herself steadily, see herself true; redirected winter light struck her forehead like fire through a lens.
Maybe they’d lock her up for a while. She was dangerous, no doubt of that.
Dangerous–but not guilty.
Thank you, Peter, for telling me. I think I believe it now. There must be ways to control it. The thing that kills is in the mind… But it’s not my mind. I’ll find a way. No matter how long it takes.
She touched her face, and found that touch comforting.
“Okay,” she said, “you’re somebody I can live with.”
Gillian Smiled.
To be continued in:
THE FURY AND THE TERROR
THE LIGHT AT THE END
By John Skipp & Craig Spector
DEDICATION
“To The Creator, who gives us the Light by which we more clearly see the Darkness…”
New York City – 1986
Prologue
On the Dark Train, Passing Through
When all the lights went out, Peggy Lewin was alone in the third car. She had been trying to immerse herself in Love’s Deadly Stranger, t
rying to drive away thoughts of that bastard Luis and their miserable “night on the town,” vainly fighting back tears. Now the paperback sat limp and forgotten in her hand, and all she could think about was how frightened she had suddenly become.
“Oh, Christ,” she moaned softly into the darkness. Slowly, she set down the book and reached into her purse, groping for a moment. Her finger closed around the Mace and remained there while her eyes cast blindly from corner to corner and a voice in her head whined it’s too late to be taking the subway alone, that cheap bastard, wouldn’t even pay for a cab, goddamn it!
Peggy squeezed the Mace for reassurance, tried to control herself. Light from the tunnel strobed in through the windows, playing across billboards for El Pico coffee and Preparation H. A nervous giggle escaped her. It was buried under the roar of the train.
Should I get up? she wondered. Find some people, some light? She stood, shaky, in the center of the aisle, and looked in either direction. Darkness. A sigh escaped her, and she moved to the security of the metal holding post on her right: a pretty girl, slightly overweight and modestly trendy, willing slave of Manhattan’s you-gotta-look-good prerogative, wishing suddenly that she’d played down her curves. Who knew what kinds of creeps rode at this time of night?
The dark train pushed forward, racing toward the southern tip of Manhattan Island. It struck her that they would be rolling into 42nd Street any minute now, and that even though Times Square wasn’t the greatest place in the world at 3:30 in the morning, it had to be better than this. There’d be a cop or something, anyway. There’d be light.
There’d be hope.
“Hurry up,” she almost prayed. “Oh, hurry up and let me out of here.”
As if in answer, light flooded the car from either side. Gratefully, she moved toward the center doors, watching the pillars whip past, the regular hodgepodge of derelicts assembled, the long TIMES SQUARE 42 ST. sign, more pillars, an officer, more pillars, more pillars, more …
… and she realized that the train wasn’t going to stop, and she pounded against the glass with her fists, a mute sob welling in her throat as the station whizzed by…
… and in the last moment of concentrated light, before darkness engulfed her once again and completely, she saw the man standing in the space between cars, staring in through the door.
Staring in at her.
And she saw the door slowly open.
“It ain’t stoppin’, Jerry! Check it out!”
“Yeah, I see it, man,” he answered, but Jerry wasn’t watching that at all. His eyes were on the big black cop, smiling coldly, while his mind worked. “Yeah, officer. Why doncha go find out what’s wrong with ol’ Pinhead, the conductor? Lights go out, train don’t stop … looks like a job for the police, ya know it?”
The cop frowned, nervous and torn. On the one hand, something was definitely wrong. On the other hand, skinheaded punks like these guys formed their own category of bad news. Sure, one of ’em couldn’t even sit up right now, might start pukin’ any minute; and the one with his nose against the glass looked too stupid to worry about.
But he’ll be right there if this Jerry creep starts anything, he noted, unconsciously fondling the butt of his gun. And Jerry-creep probably will.
There were two other people in the car: two little middle-class hippie throwbacks, probably never been so glad to see a cop in their lives. They were huddled together in the corner by the door, eyes full of mute appeal. Jerry had been giving ’em grief before the lights went out; their upraised voices had drawn Officer Vance in from the last car, where he’d wearily been trying to rouse a crashed-out derelict.
If I leave now, Vance knew for a fact, these boys are dead meat. Not that it makes that much difference to me. But, dammit, then I will have to book Jerry and his bozo friends, chase ’em halfway to Hell and back on this friggin’ blacked-out train. Oh, Jesus. Thoughts of switchblades in the darkness made him very, very nervous.
He had pretty well decided to stay when Peggy Lewin’s scream ripped into their ears from five cars ahead. The two hippies jumped a foot a piece and came down hugging each other like pansies in a high wind. Something in Vance’s chest tightened up and froze; that was not a natural scream. He quickly glanced at Jerry’s face and saw that the fucker was smiling.
“Sic ’em, baby!” Jerry yelled. “Woof woof woof! It’s Police Dog!” His dimwit buddyboy guffawed, steaming up the window. Vance felt like knocking their heads together.
Then Peggy Lewin screamed again. This time it was worse. Much worse. It wailed out and out, as though her soul had been soaked in gasoline and lit, sent howling out of her mouth to shrivel and die in midair. Even Jerry shut up for a second.
Even Jerry had never heard such terror.
“Damn,” Vance hissed. He had no choice. Peggy Lewin had made up his mind for him. Choking down fear, he drew his revolver and started running toward the front of the train. When Jerry refused to get out of the way, Vance knocked him on his ass and kept going, just as the tunnel swallowed them again.
“I HOPE IT GETS YOU, TOO, YOU BLACK BASTARD!” Jerry bellowed in the fresh darkness. Vance bit back a response, by now scared half out of his mind. The screaming had stopped, but somehow that was not reassuring.
I hope it gets you, too. The voice rang in his ears. Like the scream. Like the roar of the train. You black bastard! It hurt to be hated so automatically, so completely, on the basis of so very little: uniforms, pigments in skin. The fact that he did the exact same thing did nothing to dampen his rage.
I’d love to blow you away, white boy, Vance thought bitterly as he came to the door. Blow you right the hell off this world. But the girl, if that was what it was, might still be alive. He was compelled to check it out.
The door slid open, and he stepped into the space between cars. The wind blasted into him, and the metal platform pitched and buckled beneath his feet. Carefully, he reached over and opened the door to the next car, moved from blackness to blackness to blackness, pausing nervously on the other side.
The car was empty. Silent, but for the ever-present thunder. No, more than silent and empty. Dead. Suddenly, Vance was overwhelmed by the feeling that he was riding in a dead thing, already beginning to rot, kept in motion by a power not its own.
Vance knocked on the conductor’s door. No answer. He rattled the lock. “Sid?” he called. “You in there?” No answer. Something damp and chilling uncoiled in his gut.
What the hell is wrong with this train? he wondered, and then forced himself to keep moving.
A man named Donald Baldwin was slumped in the driver’s seat, one hand dutifully on the throttle, staring straight ahead. The lights from his instruments were the only working lights on the train; they cast bright reds and yellows on all the shiny spots and streaks in his clothing.
The door to the engineer’s booth was locked from the inside. Any driver with half a brain kept it locked on night runs, because you were a sitting duck in there, and only lunatics rode at night anyway. If you were crazy enough to be there in the first place, you could at least minimize your risks.
Tonight, Don Baldwin had been grateful for his half a brain. Right after leaving 51st Street, something started to rattle at the door. Not just the train shaking around; something was trying to get in. Don didn’t know why he thought something instead of someone, but he did, and it scared the bejesus out of him.
He had tried to raise Sid, his conductor, who sat in a similar cab toward the middle of the train. No answer. He couldn’t even be sure if the intercom was working. Goddamn train is falling apart, he silently groused. Whole goddamn transit system. He got a sudden vivid flash of Sid and Vance, just hanging out, the exact kind of lazy-ass, spear-chucking bastards that were dragging the subways to ruin. And me with a nutcase at the door, he moaned. God damn it.
Don lit a cigarette, his twenty-third of the night. He always smoked a lot on night runs; it killed time, and what else could you do? Even with his side window open, it filled up with s
moke pretty fast in there.
He never saw the mist drift in, under the door.
He never even knew what hit him.
By the time Officer Vance reached the car where Peggy Lewin lived and died, the back of the train was already filling up with rats. They were gray, squat, bloated little bastards with red, gleaming eyes, and they came up through the floor like maggots out of pork. As though they’d been there the whole time. Just waiting.
The derelict that Vance failed to rouse was still sleeping, decked out on the cool curved plastic of the seats, thick in his own smells. The rats had found him.
Just as Vance had been found by the dark shape in the doorway. The shape that motioned toward the dead thing at its feet, and impaled him with its luminous eyes.
“Cigarette?” Jerry was kneeling in front of the two wimps, grinning unpleasantly. They shook their heads, blubbering. He smacked the taller one across the face, eliciting a yelp. “I didn’t ask if you wanted one! I ast if you got one!”
The taller wimp, William Deere by name, shook his head more emphatically and whimpered a little. First time he’d ever wished for cigarettes, too. Big night for firsts. Fortunately, his friend Robert had one; the little longhair pulled a Tareyton out with shaky fingers and handed it to Jerry.
“What the hell is this? “Jerry took it, inspected it in the light from the tunnel. “Tareyton. These any good?”
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